Full text of "Speculum 1928-01: Vol 3 Iss 1"

See other formats

‘

og he

% ;
a

RY,.

“

¥y®
yy
47
}
¥

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

fe st Cs Pe

Asay!

Apes tthe

t
ee

Cambridge, M

ot?

eas. ene

got
+

ts
pas

am,

a 4

SPECULUM

A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

ais

CONTENTS

ARTICLES

AN EIGHTH-CENTURY LIST OF BOOKS IN A BODLEIAN MS. FROM WURZBURG AND
{TS PROBABLE RELATION TO THE LAUDIAN ACTS

BEOWULF 1039 AND THE GREEK ¢px:-

TWO DOCUMENTS CONCERNING ARCHBISHOP ROGER OF YORK

NOTES ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE SECRETUM SECRETORUM

TWO MIDDLE-IRISH RELIGIOUS ANECDOTES

PUBLIC RECITALS IN UNIVERSITIES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY .. . L. Tuornvixe
AN INVERTED PALIMPSEST L. THornpIKE

REVIEWS

W. A. Morris, The Mediaeval English Sheriff to 1300 (N. Neilson); H. A. L. Fisher, Paul Vinogradoff, A
Memoir (N. Neilson); H. Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (P. S. Allen); H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, Historical
Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England (J. F. Willard); N. Groen, Lericon Anthimeum (S. H. Weber);
A. H. Birch, A Comparison of the Styles of Gaudentius of Brescia, the De Sacramentis, and the Didascalia
Apostolorum or Fragmenta Veronensia (S. H. Weber); W. C. Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences
(R. K. Root); J. Balogh, Voces Paginarum: Beitrdge zur Geschichte des lauten Lesens und Schreibens (W. B.
Sedgwick); B. D. Brown, A Study of the Southern Passion (R. J. Menner); H. Cornell, Biblia Pauperum
(E. T. DeWald); V. H. Galbraith, ed., The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333 to 1381 (W. E. Lunt); C. H.
Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (L. J. Paetow); H. V. Routh, God, Man, and Epic Poetry
(F. P. Magoun, Jr).

ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOKS RECEIVED

NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS.

VouuMmE III JANUARY, 1928 NUMBER 1

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA

SPECULUM, A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

EDITORIAL BOARD
Eprtor-1n-CHIEF
Epwarp KENNARD Ranp
Manaaine Epitor Pus.isHine Eprtor

Francis Peasopy Maaoon, Jr Joun Nicnuotas Brown

It is kindly requested that all communications intended for the above editors be addressed
Lehman Hall, Cambridge, Mass.

Specutum, A JourNAL or MepIAEVAL Sruptes, is published quarterly by the MeprarvaAL
Acapemy or America. The issues appear in January, April, July, and October. The sub-
scription price is Five Dollars; single copies of the current volume may be had post-free for
One Dollar and Fifty Cents. Members of the Acapemy receive Speco.um free. In case of
accidental omission in the delivery of SpecuLum, Members are requested to communicate
forthwith in writing with the Executive Secretary. MSS submitted for publication should
be forwarded to the Managing Editor, but MSS will not be returned unless accompanied by
a stamped and self-addressed envelope. For the details of editorial practice Contributors are
directed to ‘Notes for Contributors’ at the end of this number. The Editors cannot assume
responsibility for the loss of MSS in the mails.

Witu1am WITHERLE LAWRENCE JaMES Hucu Ryan
Columbia University Catholic University of America
CuarLES Rurus Morey Ernest Hatcu WILKINS
Princeton University Oberlin College
Louis Joun Partow Kart Youne
University of California Yale University
ADVISORY BOARD
Puitie ScouyLeR ALLEN Grorce La PIANA
“ University of Chicago Harvard University
} Harry Morcan Ayres Joun Matruews Manty
3 Columbia University University of Chicago
2 CHARLES Henry BEESON Dana CarLToN Munro 3
: University of Chicago Princeton University
4 GrorceE RaLeicH CorrmMaN Wituram ALBert NItTzeE
\ Boston University University of Chicago
CorNeELIA CaTLIN COULTER Artaur Kinestey Porter :
‘ Mount Holyoke College Harvard University ;
% Rautpg Apams CRAM Frep Norris Rosinson H
E Boston, Massachusetts Harvard University j
a Gorpon Hatt GEROULD JoHN StronG Perry TaTLock
f) Princeton University Harvard University i
a :
a Grorce LivinestoNE HamMIttTON JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON i
q Cornell University University of Chicago ;
y CuarLes Homer Haskins LyNN THORNDIKE ;
Harvard University Columbia University |
z James Fretp WILLARD
y University of Colorado /
4
|
.

Vor. ILI, No. 1. — Copyright, 1928, by the Mediaeval Academy of America. — Paintep in U.S. A.
Entered as second-class matter, May 8, 1926, at the Post Office at Boston, Mass., under the Act of August 24, 1912-

AAS ee SRE RTE RB BY DET a

AN OE MI LT

etSge, 9

A an OT Ata Rip OAR AM

teen Paces

SPECULUM

A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

AN EIGHTH-CENTURY LIST OF BOOKS IN A
BODLEIAN MS. FROM WURZBURG AND
ITS PROBABLE RELATION TO
THE LAUDIAN ACTS

BY ELIAS AVERY LOWE

F the various collections of manuscripts in the Bodleian

Library none is so important as the collection presented by
Archbishop Laud.! Among the Laudian manuscripts by far the
most valuable are those composing the group which comes from
St Kilian’s in Wiirzburg. And of these Wiirzburg manuscripts the
oldest is the eighth-century copy of St Augustine’s De Trinitate, now
MS. Laud. Misc. 126.2 On a page originally left blank, at the end
of this manuscript (fol. 260r) an Anglo-Saxon hand of about the

1 The bulk of Laud’s MSS came to Oxford in four instalments. The figures as given by
W. D. Macray in Annals of the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1890), pp. 83 ff., are 462 volumes
in 1635, 181 in 1636, 575 in 1639, and 81 in 1640. But according to more recent authority the
first instalment (May 22, 1635) consisted of 467 MSS, 46 being from Wiirzburg, and 5 rolls
and 2 charters; the second (June 16, 1636) of 183 MSS; the third (June 28, 1639) of 554 MSS,
among them the famous Graeco-Latin codex of the Acts and the Peterborough Chronicle; the
fourth (November 6, 1640) of 47 MSS. Cf. E. W. B. Nicholson’s note in A Summary Catalogue
of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Oxford, 1922), II, 1, pp. 13 ff. The
entries found inside the Laudian MSS (see facs. on pl. II, 1) are apt to be erroneously re-
garded as furnishing the date when the particular MS. was donated.

2 For facsimiles see Chatelain, Uncialis Scriptura, pls. 52 and 96; E. H. Zimmermann,
Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, pls. 138-141 and p. 218; New Palaeographical Society, Series II,
pls. 83-85. There is a summary and somewhat inaccurate description of the MS. in H. O.
Coxe, Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae, II, 1 = Catal. Codd. MSS
Laudianorum: Codices Latini (Oxford, 1858), cols. 128, 129.

AT os Se Sg a eye grea

eb as et

oe. eee ae ee

4 An Eiighth-Century List of Books

year 800 entered a small list of books.' This list, the subject of the
present note, is worthy of study for two reasons: first, it refers, in
all probability, to the books of the episcopal library of Wiirzburg,
and thus gives us an idea of what that library was like at the end
of the eighth century, that is, about two generations after the Anglo-
Saxon Boniface placed his compatriot Burchard in charge of the
newly established bishopric of Wiirzburg; and second, because of the
light which this ancient catalogue may throw on a former home of
the famous Graeco-Latin manuscript of the Acts known to Biblical
scholars as E or the Laudian Acts (Bodleian MS. Laud. Gr. 35).?
The manuscript Laud. Misc. 126 is written partly in uncials and
partly in half-uncials of a distinct type which flourished in the Frank-
ish realm during the eighth century.’ The ornamentation, which
consists of birds and fishes, is as characteristic as the script; the
frequent use of green ink in titles is also a feature peculiar to this
type. Northeastern France has been suggested as the home of this
style of decoration.‘ The French origin of the manuscript is further
confirmed by the few words found on fol. 259v, after the last colo-
phon at the very end of the original text, written in pre-Caroline min-
uscule of the unmistakably French style which preceded the so-called
Corbie type.° Accordingly, the manuscript which contains the ancient
catalogue under discussion came to Wiirzburg from France. Nor is it
the only Wiirzburg manuscript of French provenance. In the famous

1 For some inexplicable reason this list has never been published. A few items are men-
tioned by Coxe in the catalogue just cited. P. Lehmann alludes to it in his excellent study,
Franciscus Modius als Handschriftenforscher (Munich, 1908), p. 65, n. 1. The editors of the
New Palaeographical Society (loc. cit.) give a facsimile of a portion of the list and make a num-
ber of interesting observations.

2 For a description, see Coxe, op. cit., I (1853), 517; facsimiles are in J. O. Westwood,
Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria, pl. x. 1; C. Tischendorf, Monumenta Sacra Inedita, TX (1870);
Palaeographical Society, I, pl. 80; F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the
New Testament (4th ed. by E. Miller, Cambridge, 1894), facs. 25; W. A. Copinger, The Bible
and its Transmission (London, 1897), pl. xiii. Further literature in L. Traube, Vorlesungen
und Abhandlungen, I (Munich, 1909), 210.

3 The entire quires marked iii, vi, xi, xii, and the last page of quire x are written in half-
uncial; the rest of the MS. is in uncial. For other MSS written in this type of uncial see the
writer’s article, ‘The Vatican MS. of the Gelasian Sacramentary and its Supplement at Paris,’
Journal of Theological Studies, XX VII (1926), 373.

* Cf. Zimmermann, op. cit., p. 81.

5 T refer to the words: speraut iam teneo illi sunt.

An Eighth-Century List of Books 5

Wiirzburg palimpsest (MS. Mp. th. fol. 64a) we find, over the Penta-
teuch and Prophets in fifth-century uncials, St Augustine’s Commen-
tary on the Psalms written in a French type of pre-Caroline minuscule
to which has been given the name of ‘Luxeuil.’! The important
Munich MS. of the Breviarium Alarici (Cod. Lat. Monac. 22501),
written in uncial characters of the seventh century, formerly belonged
to the Cathedral Library of Wiirzburg, but its place of origin must
be France, to judge from the script and the history of the text.?

From a note entered on the fly-leaf (fol. 1v) of this eighth-century
manuscript of St Augustine, it appears that it reached St Kilian’s
within a century after it was written. The note is in ordinary minus-
cule of the ninth century and runs as follows:

Si mors quod absit inopinata super familiarem amicum nostrum in-
gruerit, adiuro per deum omnipotentem illum in cuius liber iste de sancta
trinitate beati augustini peruenerit manus, faciat eum sancto kiliano
restitui.®

The presence of this note at the opening of the manuscript suggests
that the librarian of St Kilian’s set great store by the volume. The
final words faciat eum sancto kiliano restitut bear witness to the prac-
tice of lending books. Thanks to the record in the catalogue itself
of two instances of this practice, we are able to make a shrewd guess
concerning the library which the catalogue represents.

In printing the catalogue, I preserve the original spelling, order
and relative position of the columns. I have, however, for conven-
ience’ sake, printed the extended forms, since the accompanying
facsimile (pl. I) makes a letter-for-letter transcript unnecessary. To

1 A. Chroust, Monumenta Palaeographica, Lieferung V, pl. 4, has a good facsimile. The
MS. which gives the name to the type is Paris, B. N. Lat. 9427 containing the Gallican Lec-
tionary which Mabillon discovered at Luxeuil. For other MSS in this style of pre-Caroline
minuscule see my ‘Studia Palaeographica,’ Sitsungsberichte d. kgl. bayer. Akademie d. Wiss.,
philos.-philol. u. hist. kl. (Munich, 1910), Abh. 12, pp. 31 ff. The Luxeuil type is fully illus-
trated by Zimmermann, op. cit., pls. 44-74.

2 Facsimiles in Silvestre, Paléographie Universelle, pl. 112; Zangemeister-Wattenbach,
Exempla Codicum Lat. Litteris Majusculis Scriptorum, pls. 27, 28; Traube, ‘Enarratio Tabu-
larum,’ pls. iv, vi, in Mommsen’s Theodosiani Libri, XVI (Berlin, 1905); Zimmermann, op. cit.,
pl. 38; E. A. Lowe, Codices Lugdunenses Antiquissimi (Lyons, 1924), facs. suppl. 1.

* This entry is printed by Coxe, loc. cit., col. 129, and by the editors of New Pal. Soc.,
whose folio number 16 is a printer’s error for 1b (1 verso) and whose dominum is an incorrect
expansion of dm.

ASD TS Uns ORS SSMS Sid oe A RE 2 Tt s

An Eighth-Century List of Books

simplify reference, I have also numbered items and have put in
square brackets, after certain items, the name of the author or of the
work to which, in my opinion, it most probably refers. Apart from a
few items, identification with extant MSS is quite out of the question.
But I have thought it useful to call attention to extant Wirzburg
MSS not later than the year 900, which might reasonably be copies

of items in the list.

10.
11.

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23-24.
25.
26.
27.
28-29.
30.
31.
32.

1. Actus apostulorum

2. pastoralem [Gregorius M.]

8. dialogorum [Gregorius M.]

4. commentarium AD HOLZKIRIHHUN
5. historia anglorum [Beda]

6.
7
8
9
0
1

epistola sancti hieronimi

. liber doctrine christiane [Augustinus ]
. sancti augustini de fide
. sancti ambrosi de fide

liber orosi [Historia adv. gentes }
liber arnouii | Arnobius Contra -omcageadll
or Super Psalmos J
juuenci super euangelia
liber super effeseos [Hieronymus ]
episcopal(e)
decreta pontificum
liber augustini de quantitate anime
liber iunili [Instructiones ?)]
official(e) [Isidorus, De officiis, possibly Amalarius ]
enceridion [Augustinus }
liber prosperi [De vita contemplativa ]
moralia in iob libri xxiii [Gregorius M.]
summum bonum [Jsidorus }
lectionari duo
glosa
liber althelmi [De laudibus virginitatis ?]
liber de trinitate [Augustinus ]
liber esaiae duo
catalogus hieronimi presbyteri de auctoribus librorum
grammatica sancti augustini et sancti bonifati
epistulae sancti pauli

Bs Ey Sa + - dia a ;

. JAccor apoyoalef. © sx ppecaleey Ss

. . ! ~ : omelia ct 4 Maio
alo yen) ? r 9 AS ry

a i Papas | eT ;
4 tLdssserpmexpiane ’
. earn:
~~ sah
Be Peek Wl '
Se za |
“Sune endl

aaa ms |
|

aha cacsbgguy hagfenims bi deaserapubuy li bpofe
: co Spam Ne parce ci Byebomnp ay,
. papel:

< a “ >

re: s ° -
oh oe
3

pyy:

ee adhalporhhen bacacuding: ~ ii

Pate I.—Oxrorp, Bopieran MS. Laub. Misc. 126.

Fol. 260 r.

An Eighth-Century List of Books 7

ad fultu
33. speculum [Augustinus ]
34. omelia sancti gregorii maiora pars
35. liber prouerbium
36. beatitudines [Chromatius ?]

In any attempt to identify items in the list with extant Wiirzburg
MSS the date of the catalogue is an important consideration. For
if my date, about a.p. 800, is correct, then there are only six or seven
identifiable items, namely 1, 2, 4, 15, 27, 32 and 34. All other
Wiirzburg MSS which could be brought into relationship with the
list seem to me to be considerably later than the year 800. Some of
these, however, deserve mention here as being possible early copies
of books registered in the list. This possibility is converted to proba-
bility by the circumstance that many of the MSS are either them-
selves in Anglo-Saxon characters or are obviously copied from In-

sular exemplars.

Item 1. Presumably Bodleian MS. Laud. Gr. 35, of which more will be
said below.

Item 2. Bodleian MS. Laud. Misc. 263 has the Wiirzburg shelf-mark. It
is written in Anglo-Saxon script of the early ninth century. Wiirz-
burg Mp. th. f. 42, in ordinary minuscule of the ninth century,
also contains Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis. The fly-leaf is in
Anglo-Saxon and a corrector used the Anglo-Saxon method of
supplying omissions (fol. 2r).

Item 3. Wiirzburg Mp. th. f. 19, in Anglo-Saxon letters (except fols. 1 v—
14v), saec. ix init. This copy of the Dialogues might be contem-
porary with our list, but I rather doubt it.

Item 4. The anonymous commentary was in its place when the list was
made. The entry which records that it was borrowed was made by
a different librarian. Judging from its position between the books
of the Pope who sent the first mission to England and the book of
the first English historian one may venture the guess that it was
another book with English associations. Such a book is Wiirz-
burg Mp. th. q. 2, containing St Jerome’s Commentary on Eccle-
siastes in the fifth-century uncials, which, before it got to Wiirz-
burg, had belonged to Abbess Cuthsuuitha, as is attested by the
inscription in beautiful Anglo-Saxon majuscule characters on the
front fly-leaf. The only abbess by this name of whom history
knows was in charge of a nunnery in or near Worcester about

cE Ss Sas ae a ae gs rae

LALO = oie TURE

Sle) Se ee eee

—

Item 7.

Item 11.

Item 15.

Item 18.

Item 21.

Item 26.

An Eighth-Century List of Books

the year 700, which fits in admirably with the date of the inscrip-
tion.! In view of the English atmosphere suggested by the first
few entries in the catalogue this identification has something in
its favor.”

The Bodleian MS. Laud. Misc. 121, saec. ix, from Wiirzburg,
is in ordinary minuscule, but in part manifestly under Insular
influence (see fols. 72 ff. On fol. 4 lr occurs for autem).

In view of the preceding item, Arnobius Contra haereses seems
highly probable here, but Arnobius Super Psalmos is not to be
excluded considering that the next item is a commentary on part
of the Bible.

Wiirzburg still possesses three very old MSS of canons. Of these,
Mp. th. f. 3, in Anglo-Saxon script, might be identified with our
item; but Mp. th. f. 72, containing the Dionysio-Hadriana, is
written in Anglo-Saxon characters of the Wiirzburg -Fulda region
but of a later date than our catalogue. Later, too, is Mp. th. f.
146, written in ordinary minuscule but under Anglo-Saxon influ-
ence.* It should be added that Bodleian MS. Laud. Misc. 436,
in Anglo-Saxon characters of the early ninth century, contains
the Concordia Canonum by Cresconius. The MS. probably comes
from Wiirzburg.

This probably refers to Isidore’s De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, in which
case it could be identified with Wiirzburg Mp. th. q. 18, written
in Insular characters of the end of the eighth century; or else to
a very early copy of the work by Amalarius which in the tenth
century MS. Boulogne 82 in Insular script is actually entitled,
as I learn from W. J. Anderson, Liber Officialis. This, however,
would necessitate pushing forward the date of the catalogue by
at least two decades.

A MS. of Gregory’s Moralia in Anglo-Saxon script of the ninth
century still exists in Wiirzburg Mp. th. f. 149a, but it contains
only Books 32-35; Mp. th. f. 150, in ordinary minuscule of the
ninth century, shows Insular influence but contains only excerpts
from the Moralia.

The most obvious reference would be to De Laudibus Virginitatis.
It exists in Wiirzburg Mp. th. f. 21, written in the time of Bishop
Gozbald (842-855). The script is ordinary minuscule but the

1 On Cuthswitha, see W. G. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saronicum (Cambridge, 1897),
p. 150, who refers to documents printed by Birch (Cartularium Saronicum, 85, 122) and Kem-
ble (Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Sazonici, 36, 58)

2 Facsimiles of this MS. in Chroust, Monum. Pal., Ser. I, Lief. V, pls. 2, 3.

3 A facsimile of Mp. th. f. 72 is given by Chroust, loc. cit., pl. 6.

An Ezghth-Century List of Books 9

abbreviations show that it was copied from an Anglo-Saxon
original.' But it is quite possible that Aldhelm’s Metrica and
Aenigmata are here meant. The place of this item next to the
item Glossa would support such an identification.

Item 27. Probably refers to the eighth-century copy of St Augustine On
the Trinity which came to Wiirzburg from France and is now
Bodleian MS. Laud. Misc. 126, on the last page of which was
entered the catalogue under discussion.

Item 31. St Boniface’s Grammar is a very rare manuscript. Apparently a
single copy has survived, and is now preserved in the Vatican
Library, MS. Pal. lat. 1746, from Lorsch.? This MS. begins with
St Augustine’s Grammar and ends with St Boniface’s. The pre-
sumption is that the MS. in our list contained the same group of
works as the Palatinus. The ancient Wiirzburg librarian thought
it sufficient to mention the first and last authors.*

Item 32. The Pauline Epistles are found in Wiirzburg Mp. th. f. 12 and
Mp. th. f. 69, both in Insular script of about the year 800, and
in Bodleian MS. Laud Lat. 108 in Anglo-Saxon script of the
ninth century.‘

Item 34. Of Gregory’s Homilies many MSS must have existed. Wiirzburg
still possesses several. Mp. th. f. 45 is written in Anglo-Saxon
characters of about the year 800 and might thus be the volume
referred to in our catalogue. Mp. th. f. 43, in Insular script
(Irish ?) seems of the ninth century. Mp. th. f. 47 and Mp. th. f. 59,
both in Anglo-Saxon script, are apparently of the ninth century.
Bodleian MS. Laud. Misc. 275 from Wiirzburg is in a German
type of ordinary minuscule (ninth century), but under Anglo-
Saxon influence.

Item 36. This may refer to Chromatius’ Sermon on the eight Beatitudes,
printed in Migne, Patrol. Lat., XX, 323 ff.

1 A facsimile is in Chroust, loc. cit., pl. 9.

2 See Neues Archiv VIII (1883), 320. Mr C. H. Beeson of Chicago believes he has found
two more copies in Paris MSS.

3 The Palatinus was used by A. Mai in Class. Auct. ab V atic. Codd. edit., VII (Rome, 1835)
475 ff., and by Arevalo in his Jsidoriana, II, 370 (Migne, Patrol. Lat., LXXXI, 879), who
gives its full contents as follows: Artes S. Augustini, Regula Augustini de nomine et aliis partibus
orationis, Ars Donati quam Paulus Diaconus exponit, S. Y sidori episcopi de grammatica et par-
trbus eius et figuris, Dynamius grammaticus ad discipulum suum, Grammatica Juliani episcopi
Toletani, Grammatica et ars Tacuini, Alia ars siue grammatica Juliani Toletani, Ars Asperi de
octo partibus orationis, Ars domni Bonifacvi arciepiscopi et martyris. For a similar, though not
precisely identical, collection see items 416, 417 of the tenth-century Lorsch catalogue in
Becker’s Catalogi Bubliothecarum Antiqui, p. 110.

* For fascimiles see E. S. Buchanan, ‘The Epistles of S. Paul from the Codex Laudianus,’
Sacred Latin Texts: No. II (London, 1914).

eT fn

Mel A FES ite I Se i See

ih eae ie Ss Fe

10 An Eighth-Century List of Books

An analysis of the above list shows that five items refer to Biblical
books (1, 28, 29, 32, 35), four to books by Gregory (2, 3, 21, 34), one
to Bede’s works (5), three (possibly four) to Jerome (6, 13, 30 and
possibly 4), seven to Augustine (7, 8, 16, 19, 27, 31, 33), one each
to Ambrose (9), Orosius (10), Arnobius (11), Juvencus (12); three
at least are liturgical (14, 23, 24), one is canon law (15), one Junilius
(17), one Prosper (20), one (possibly two) Isidorus (22 and probably
18), one a glossary (25), one Aldhelm (26), one Boniface (31) and
one a book on the Beatitudes (36).

It can hardly be denied that the order in the catalogue, if it is
not altogether haphazard, is peculiar. The first entry, distinguished
by a capital letter, is, curiously enough, a volume of the Acts. No
other mediaeval catalogue beginning with the Acts is known to me.’
The second entry is Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis, the third his
Dialogi. These are followed by an anonymous Commentary and
by Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, called here by its short title.
Strange that these books, unless similarity of format connects them,
or unless some other special reason exists, should come before the
works of the great doctors of the Church, SS Augustine, Jerome,
Ambrose. One is struck with the fact that a number of items are
given without the author, as if the books were too familiar to require
it, amongst them the works of SS Jerome, Augustine, Gregory,
Isidore and Bede. Considering the position of three Biblical vol-
umes toward the end of the list, it strikes one as odd that the
catalogue opens with a manuscript of the Acts.

The whole of the above catalogue is written in Anglo-Saxon
characters, excepting the words AD HOLZKIRIHHUN, which are added
by a German hand after the fourth item, commentarium. There can
be no doubt what the added phrase signifies. It records the loan of
the book to Holzkirchen. Similarly, the phrase ad fultu, which is
entered in small Anglo-Saxon characters above the entries in the
second column, makes note of the fact that the four books in that
column had been borrowed by the monastery of Fulda. Fulda and

1 No instances occur in G. Becker’s Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui (Bonn, 1885), and
none is known to my friend Professor Lehmann, whose knowledge of mediaeval catalogues

is very extensive. I here wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Professor Lehmann and to
Dom Wilmart for suggestions which they were good enough to give me.

piers”
A RES fhe ce i
Cicely aceite 13

eee THVAIA

~f { La A 4

ICAIOING ANN Chon
Wage
OTF SEIG
AOt IPN *
CAIOUIPC BY TEpu:
od DOA
aE

ety

art LOW +

(M3 ACO HCO

Fttty

f *_ he i — ad
TSNSGOAl Te)
acer cent {ghee j ay AG Nota hic
D7) eve star ominve a
‘ ag ha ge at Seale |
Cophy' eet oe 4

*
i:

Prate Il.— Oxrorp, Bopietan MS. Lavp. gr. 35

a) Fol. 1r. The ex-libris entered in Laud’s MSS by some librarian. — b) Fol. 2v.
Probatio pennae.—c) Fol. 11r.
Note by a 14th-century reader.

Latin translations of the Greek. —d) Fol. 224 v.

Se RN Od eae,

TSE SOT

An Eighth-Century List of Books 11

Holzkirchen were close together, the latter was in fact a dependency
of the former.' In his study on the humanist Modius, mentioned
above,” Professor Lehmann expressed the view that our catalogue
referred to the library of Fulda. But he was misled by imperfect
copies furnished to him, which failed to note the precise position of
the phrase ad fultu. Its position over the second column makes it
clear that Fulda, like Holzkirchen, was borrowing books from another
library. What library was it that put Fulda and Holzkirchen under
this obligation?

One or two hints we may gather from the catalogue itself. We
note, in the first place, that the list does not include St Benedict’s
Rule, nor any other monastic Rule; on the other hand, it contains
such items as lectionari and episcopale, books which strongly suggest
that we are dealing with the chapter library of a bishopric, and not
with a monastic library. From the use of Anglo-Saxon script in the
catalogue and additions, from the presence in the list of all the im-
portant Anglo-Saxon writers (Bede, Aldhelm, Boniface), and in fact
from the whole arrangement, we may gather that the library in
question was situated in a centre where Anglo-Saxon influence was
strong. By the arrangement, I mean the prominent position given
to Gregory, the Pope who instituted the Christian Church in Eng-
land, and the Venerable Bede, both of whom take precedence over
Augustine and Jerome. Finally, this ecclesiastical library, which was
under Anglo-Saxon influence, must have enjoyed very friendly rela-
tions with the monasteries of Fulda and Holzkirchen.

Considering that the manuscript containing the catalogue actu-
ally belonged to Wiirzburg in the ninth century, one naturally thinks
of Wiirzburg; and, in reality, no other place corresponds to the above
conditions quite so well. Both the monastery at Fulda and the epis-
copal see at Wiirzburg owe their existence to the zeal and energy of
the Anglo-Saxon missionary Boniface.* Fulda was his favorite
abbey, and the bishopric of Wiirzburg he entrusted to his faithful
follower, the Anglo-Saxon Burchard. Under these circumstances it

’ As early as 775 the monastery of Holzkirchen was the property of Fulda. Cf. A. Hauck,
Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, II (3d and 4th ed., 1912), 584 f. and 823.

2 P. 4, n. 1.
* The reader is referred to Hauck’s work just cited.

f
i
38

12 An Eighth-Century List of Books

goes without saying that close and friendly relations existed between
Fulda and Wiirzburg, the exchange of books being one manifesta-
tion of the intellectual commerce between the two seats of learning.
Extant manuscripts from Fulda and Wiirzburg, written in Anglo-
Saxon characters, show that the script that Boniface and Burchard
brought with them to Germany continued to flourish there for nearly
a whole century after their arrival. Considering then that our cata-
logue belongs to a library of the Fulda district, that it represents an
episcopal library under Anglo-Saxon influence, and that Wirzburg
is the first place with which we can definitely connect the manuscript
containing it, we are probably correct in concluding that the above
list of manuscripts refers to the ancient library of St Kilian’s at
Wiirzburg.'

As for the age of the catalogue, a terminus ad quem is furnished by
the writing itself, which to all appearances is hardly much posterior
to the year 800. This approximate date is also confirmed by internal
evidence. The catalogue mentions no work of the Anglo-Saxon
Alcuin, who died in 804. The terminus a quo is supplied by the his-
tory of Wiirzburg. The bishopric was not in existence before the
year 741, so our catalogue is more recent than that date. But it is
probably posterior to the year 787, because the fly-leaf at the begin-
ning of the volume (fol. 1r) contains, in similar if not identical script,
a copy of Charlemagne’s famous letter De Litteris Colendis addressed
to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda in 787.2 It may accordingly be safe to
say that our catalogue was entered in the Wirzburg manuscript
toward the end of the eighth century.

And this brings me to my second point: May not Actus Aposto-
lorum in the catalogue actually refer to the well-known Codex E? *
I am inclined to think that it does. The identification, I realize, is
pure conjecture, but something, I think, may be said for it. If we
take the view that the arrangement in the list is not an accidental
one but reflects Anglo-Saxon predilection for the works of Pope

1 The editors of the New Pal. Society (loc. cit.) concede the possibility that the list refers
to Wiirzburg.

2 See the edition in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges, 11, 79, and C. H. Beeson’s
A Primer of Medieval Latin (Chicago, 1925), pp. 152f. A discussion of this letter will be
found in Professor Lehmann’s forthcoming study on Fulda.

3 See above, p. 4, n. 2.

An Eighth-Century List of Books 13

Gregory and Bede, then the place occupied by the volume of Acts is
best explained by similar historical association. And this fits in well
with the history of the MS. as it is commonly reconstructed. That
history, though sometimes stated so dogmatically as to make it
appear that every assertion is attested by documentary evidence, is
in truth mostly conjectural.' Briefly, it is this: the MS. was written
in seventh-century uncial characters, probably somewhere in Sar-
dinia, for it contains, at the end of the volume, a copy of an edict in
seventh-century Greek cursive which mentions Fl. Pancratius, dux
Sardiniae — a local title used between 534 and 749. It must have left
Sardinia early, for by the beginning of the eighth century we find it in
England: Biblical scholars seem to be agreed that the Venerable Bede,
in his Retractationes in Acta, written between 731 and 735, used a
text that can be no other than Codex E.’ It is usually stated that it
was brought to England by Theodore of Tarsus, though there is no
evidence for that. Professor Ropes’s suggestion that it was one of
the books acquired in Italy by Benedict Biscop or Ceolfrid has more
historical foundation,* since there is a record that books were
brought back to England by both of these inveterate travelers.‘
The MS. must have left England during the eighth century, for the
additions which were made to it are all in continental writing and
some of them, like the Creed, go back to the eighth century.* Dr Cras-

1 See the example cited by Dr. Craster in The Bodleian Quarterly, II (1919), no. 23, p. 289.
In F. G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (2d ed., 1896), pp. 145 f., one gets the
impression that the MS. never left England; but the same writer gives a very cautious and
accurate account of the MS. in his Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament
(2d ed., 1912), pp. 100 f.

2 There are over seventy citations from Acts in which Bede agrees with E, and in some
readings Bede and E agree against all other witnesses. Cf. H. J. Vogels, Handbuch der neutes-
tamentlichen Textkritik (Miinster i.W., 1923), p. 52. But it is a curious fact that not a single
correction or pen-trial is in the Anglo-Saxon script.

3 J. H. Ropes, The Text of Acts (London: Macmillan, 1926), p. Ixxxv (being vol. III of
The Beginnings of Christianity, edited by Foakes-Jackson and Kirsopp Lake).

* The Historia Abbatum Auctore Baeda (ed. C. Plummer), p. 369, speaks of piles of books
brought back by Benedict Biscop: innumerabilem librorum omnis generis copiam adportauit.
In the same history (p. 379) we read of Ceolfrid: bibliothecam utriusque monasterii, quam
Benedictus abbas magna caepit instantia, ipse non minori geminauit industria; ita ut tres pan-
dectes nouae translationis, ad unum uetustae translationis quem de Roma adtulerat, ipse super
adiungeret, etc. See also the Historia Abbatum Auctore Anonymo (ed. C. Plummer), p. 395.

5 A probatio pennae in ordinary minuscule, saec. ix, x, occurs on fol. 1r, on fol. 2v, top

margin, and another by a different hand on fol. 10 v; on fols. 10 v, 11 r, 94v, 144 v, occur
interlinear transliterations of the Greek text. The Latin script seems of about the year 900.

14 An Exghth-Century List of Books

ter has pointed out reasons for thinking that the MS. first went to
Italy and was still there in the 14th century.' But the usual opinion
is that it went from England to Germany, having been taken thither
by one of the missionaries. It was in Germany that Archbishop
Laud’s agents, taking advantage of the turbulent conditions during
the Thirty Years’ War, acquired so many of the Latin MSS which
he presented to Oxford.? As the oldest of these came from Wiirzburg,
the natural supposition is that our MS. of Acts also came from Wiirz-
burg, because such a MS., for which there was no practical use,
could have been preserved only in a centre which had a taste for
very ancient MSS, and Wirzburg was certainly such a centre, as
one may judge from extant remains. Heretofore, the connection be-
tween Codex E and Germany in the eighth century has rested upon
mere assumption. But the MS. itself contains actual evidence of its
residence in Germany in that century. On fol. 226v there is a note,
scratched in with a stylus, in the column to the right of the Creed,
under the pen-trials eppwcle ualete .. . eppwob_e. This note is written
in clear round uncial characters of the eighth century.* If one holds
up the parchment to the proper light one can read without difficulty

Kai is reproduced by x, which is noteworthy and may be of use in fixing the home of the MS. in
the tenth century. The pen-trials on fol. 226v are of different dates: iacobus prsbr grecus is
in well-formed Caroline of the ninth century; eppwo6e ualete may be of the tenth; two other en-
tries, partially erased, are of the same date. The ungainly insertions in the top margin of fol.
226v beatus b.tus qui metuit may be saec. viii ex. The same hand made entries on fol. 227
verso and recto. The 18 lines of uncial which contain the Creed seem to me an eighth-century
addition. The form of the letter G with the cauda turning up instead of down and the form of
X recall French types. The text of the Creed is ‘Old Roman’ and not ‘Textus Receptus.”
Cf. A. E. Burn, ‘Facsimiles of the Creeds from Early Manuscripts’, Henry Bradshaw Society
XXXVI (London, 1909), 2. See plates IT, IIT.

1 Cf. Bodleian Quarterly, II (Nov. 7, 1919), 290: ‘The omission of g before i in &dimo-
loiarii (= etymologiarum) in the note on fol. 2v is characteristically Romance (cf. the Italian
loica derived from logica). .. . / A fourteenth-century note on fol. 224v recerding a lacuna
in the text has more of an Italian than a German look.’ See plate II. It should be ob-
served that the fourteenth-century entry consists of only four words (Nota hic est defectus)
—phardly enough for forming a definitive judgment — and that the scribe who omitted g
before 7 in the pen-trial on fol. 2v also wrote td for t. Perhaps carelessness pure and simple
accounts both for the superfluous d and for the missing g.

2 Cf. Centralblatt fiir Bibliothekswesen XVI, 243.

3 Dr Kirsopp Lake, in 1913, called my attention to the existence of a note written with
a stylus. J. H. Ropes gives the credit for the discovery to E. W. B. Nicholson, but the latter
acknowledges his own indebtedness to Dr Lake (cf. Summary Catalogue of Western MSS,
etc., Il [Oxford, 1922], 48). Nicholson does not say what the note contained but he describes
the script as ‘Latin majuscules’ which ‘might very well be written at Canterbury in the

Piate Ifl.—Oxrorp, Bopiteran MS. Lavup. gr. 35. Fol. 226 v.

meee. ee

ee a

An Eighth-Century List of Books 15

MARIAE UIR[GINIS |
GAMUNDUM

the slightest doubt that it is,' then Codex E must have been at
St Mary’s of Gamundum when that note was written. Gamundum,
Gamundium, Gamundiae can be no other than Hornbach, situated
in the diocese of Metz.? About the year 727 Pirmin, the founder
of Reichenau, also founded a monastery at Hornbach, and its church
was dedicated to the Virgin.* He lived at Hornbach till his death,
about 753, and there is a tradition that tells of a visit which St Boni-
face paid him at Hornbach.‘ If Codex E ever came into the pos-
session of St Boniface it would not require a flight of the imagination
to see how it got from Fulda to Wiirzburg, whose first bishop was
Burchard, a disciple of Boniface.

Apart from the small kernel of fact contained in the note which
connects the MS. with Hornbach, most of the steps in the foregoing
reconstruction, are, it must be admitted, conjectural. Yet I venture
to think that this mixture of fact and surmise furnishes as probable
a story of the wanderings of this curious MS. as we can get at pres-
ent; and it also satisfactorily accounts for the peculiar prominence
given to a MS. of Acts in an eighth-century catalogue of a library
which to all appearances is the episcopal library of Wirzburg.

late 7th c.’ According to Dr Craster (cf. Bodleian Quarterly, II [1919], 289), the credit be-
longs to R. L. Poole.

1 T am aware that Dr Craster reads GAemuNpuM. The letter E presumably is written in
ligature, for there is no room for a full letter between A and M. But apart from the objection
that in the eighth century on the Continent ligatures of AE are not found in the middle of a
word (though they are found at the ends of lines, to save space, even in our oldest MSS), a
careful inspection shows that what has been taken for a scratching with the stylus is in fact
a little crease in the parchment. See plate III.

2 U. Chevalier, Répertoire des Sources Historiques du Moyen-Age, Topo-Bibliographie, col.
1262, gives Hornbach as the only equivalent for Gamundiae, -um. All other places by that
name are manifestly out of the question in this connection.

3 Viro sancto arrisit prae caeteris locus, in confinio dioeceseon Trevirensis et Metensis, ob
duorum confluxum rivulorum Gamundium sive Gamundiae, aliis Hornbach appellatus cuius
amoenitate et opportunitate sic captus est Pirminius, ut requiem sibi perpetuam illic statuerit.
Expurgato a sordidis venatorum usibus loco, monasterium insigne condidit cum aede sacra in
honorem et memoriam beatissimae Virginis Mariae. (Cf. Gallia Christiana, XIII, col. 830 E-
831 A).

* See the Life of St Pirmin edited by Holder-Egger in Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
SS., XV, pars i, p. 29.

. If this reading is correct, and I have not

Oxrorp UNIVERSITY.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND
ARTHURIAN ORIGINS

By ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS

N his article, ‘King Arthur and Politics,’ published last year in
Sprecutum,' Mr Gerould has made a valuable contribution to
the subject, emphasizing the ‘realistic’ forces that doubtless played
upon Geoffrey of Monmouth in the composition of his monumental
Historia Regum Britanniae. The connections of Geoffrey with the
Norman aristocracy and clergy, the striving of the Norman kings
to establish a royal tradition resembling, perhaps even rivalling,
that of the French monarchy, are considerations deserving the stress
Mr Gerould places on them. It is most likely that Geoffrey was
partially inspired by the purpose of furnishing the Norman kings
with a predecessor as exalted as Charlemagne.

Yet Mr Gerould himself admits that it is hard to prove that
Geoffrey was wholly conscious of the political reasons which led
him to ‘form Arthur in the image of Charlemagne.’? And it may
even be doubted whether the image of Charlemagne was in the
forefront of his consciousness. Certainly the evidence that it was
is exceedingly meagre; all that I can discover in Mr Gerould’s
article is contained in the following sentences. ‘There was Arthur,
his whole life made clear to anyone who could read Latin — Arthur,
before whom the kings of the Continent bowed down either in
fealty or fear — Arthur, who worsted even the Emperor of Rome.
Charlemagne was no greater, and he was much less ancient.’* ‘It
is not without significance that Geoffrey listed the Twelve Peers of
France among Arthur’s lords.’* Certainly this latter fact proves,
what we should assume from antecedent probability, that Geoffrey
was not unmindful of the parallel which his Arthur presented in a
vague fashion to Charlemagne. But it is the only specific and con-
clusive piece of evidence.

1 Vol. II, pp. 33 ff. 2 Speculum, II (1927), 49.
3 Ibid., p. 49. ‘ Ibid., p. 47.

:
a
3
2

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 17

Mr Gerould’s other point, that Geoffrey represented Arthur as
subjugating the kings of the Continent and as defeating the Roman
emperor because Charlemagne was a great conqueror and was
crowned emperor at Rome, is plausible enough a priori, but it is
open to several grave objections. No convincing parallels have been
pointed out between Arthur’s campaigns and those of Charlemagne.
In the war with Lucius, Geoffrey seems to be modelling the strategy
and the oratory rather on the Roman histories than on the chansons
de geste. Some of Arthur’s conquests have been shown by Fletcher
to be based on Celtic traditions,' and though manipulated by
Geoffrey, were not his invention. The war with Lucius itself is
shown by many pieces of converging evidence * to rest on the same
Welsh traditions as Arthur’s wars with Lot and Lancelot in Arthurian
romance. And though Geoffrey may have been the first to make
Lucius procurator or emperor of Rome, it is not certain that he
was, and his motive may have been quite other than the attempt to
show that Arthur was a better man than Charlemagne, emperor of
the Holy Empire.

For it must be remembered that the campaign against Lucius is
not the only sign that Geoffrey was bent on showing that the British
kings were as good as the Romans, or better. The line of descent
from Mneas, the capture of Rome by the British sovereigns, Beli-
nus, Constantine, and Maximian (precedents which Arthur cites
against Lucius) show that this general contrast of British with
Roman prowess was deliberate. And no study of this feature of the
History is complete which does not take full cognizance of the Welsh
tale of the Dream of Mazen Wledig, which likewise exploits the
Roman connections of a mythical British princess, Elen, and the
historic capture of Rome by Maximus, here confused in name with
Maxentius.’ This tale might be set aside carelessly as based on
Geoffrey. But the story contradicts Geoffrey’s version in point after
point. It is unthinkable that if it were concocted as a result of the
prestige and authority enjoyed by the History of the Kings of Britain,

1 [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philol. and Lit., X (1906), 83 f.

2 R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1927), pp. 347 f.

3 J. Loth, Mabinogion (2d ed., Paris, 1913), I, 211 f., note.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND
ARTHURIAN ORIGINS

By ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS

N his article, ‘King Arthur and Politics,’ published last year in
Specutum,! Mr Gerould has made a valuable contribution to
the subject, emphasizing the ‘realistic’ forces that doubtless played
upon Geoffrey of Monmouth in the composition of his monumental
Historia Regum Britanniae. The connections of Geoffrey with the
Norman aristocracy and clergy, the striving of the Norman kings
to establish a royal tradition resembling, perhaps even rivalling,
that of the French monarchy, are considerations deserving the stress
Mr Gerould places on them. It is most likely that Geoffrey was
partially inspired by the purpose of furnishing the Norman kings
with a predecessor as exalted as Charlemagne.

1 Vol. II, pp. 33 ff. 2 Speculum, II (1927), 49.
3 Ibid., p. 49. 4 Ibid., p. 47.
16

:
j
3
&

r in

to
yed
ital
the
ngs
ing,
ress
was
ngs

hat
led
nay
the
was
]d’s
aur,
aur,
> in

‘It
s of
ves,
frey
in a
-on-

h RIE Fein’

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 17

For it must be remembered that the campaign against Lucius is
not the only sign that Geoffrey was bent on showing that the British
kings were as good as the Romans, or better. The line of descent
from neas, the capture of Rome by the British sovereigns, Beli-
nus, Constantine, and Maximian (precedents which Arthur cites
against Lucius) show that this general contrast of British with
Roman prowess was deliberate. And no study of this feature of the
History is complete which does not take full cognizance of the Welsh
tale of the Dream of Maxen Wledig, which likewise exploits the
Roman connections of a mythical British princess, Elen, and the
historic capture of Rome by Maximus, here confused in name with
Maxentius.* This tale might be set aside carelessly as based on
Geoffrey. But the story contradicts Geoffrey’s version in point after
point. It is unthinkable that if it were concocted as a result of the
prestige and authority enjoyed by the History of the Kings of Britain,

1 [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philol. and Lit., X (1906), 83 f.

2 R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1927), pp. 347 f.

3 J. Loth, Mabinogion (2d ed., Paris, 1913), I, 211 f., note.

18 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

it should so flagrantly defy that authority. Nutt rightly maintained !
that the Dream of Mazen is an example ‘of a genre which must have
been widely represented in medieval Wales, and which certainly
yielded Geoffrey much of the material for his pre-Arthurian sections.
. .. Racial pride in the British-born occupant of the throne of the
Caesars gives a glow and force to the picture unknown in similar
stories elsewhere.’ Nutt was probably wrong, however, in proposing
that it came down through the centuries as popular tradition. The
basis for both the Dream and Geoffrey’s account of these matters
seems to be bookish material, seized upon by patriotic Welshmen
because of its connection with the history of their own island, and
badly garbled in the process of repetition.

I venture to think that Mazen Wledig affords proof that the
imaginations of the Welsh still played about the theme of their con-
nections with ancient Rome. And if we surmise that these imaginings
passed over to the Bretons along with the vast mass of other tradi-
tions later to be embodied in the Matiére de Bretagne, it is easy to
see how they would have crept into Geoffrey’s source, the book
which, it seems necessary to repeat again and again, was, according
to Geoffrey’s own statement and the internal evidence of proper
names and material,? of Breton origin. This interpretation of the
facts explains far better Geoffrey’s preoccupation with Rome as
revealed in the stories of Brennius, Helena, Maximianus, Constan-
tine, Lucius, and Leo, than the theory that Charlemagne was the
target at which the Lucius story was aimed.

In sum, no one doubts that Geoffrey more or less consciously
modelled the figure of Arthur as rival to the pretensions of the
French, political and literary. But that the figure of Charlemagne
occupied the foreground of his consciousness when he was working
up the story of Arthur is very dubious. Geoffrey’s Arthurian mate-
rials are a complex product. One may distinguish the historical
basis from Nennius; the strands of Welsh mythology; a list of heroic
Welsh names; the stories of Arthur’s birth and the war with Modred,
which seem to betray in localization and nomenclature a Cornish

1 C. Guest, Mabinogion, ed. A. Nutt (London, 1902), pp. 338 f.
2 [Harvard] Studies and Notes, X, 82; R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 344 f.

1S.
he
ar
ng
he
Ts
en

gs
li-
to
ok
ng
er
he
as
n-

sly
he

ne
ng
Le-

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 19

origin;' the Breton contribution in the exploits of Hoel, the adven-
ture of Mont St Michel, and the Bretonizing of much of the nomen-
clature; Geoffrey’s obvious adumbration of the Norman court in his
account of Arthur’s coronation ceremony; his reference to courtly
love; his personal observation in the description of Caerleon; his
oratorical style, which borrows nothing from the chansons de geste,
everything from the Latin historians. It is too simple to urge that
Geoffrey was motivated entirely or even mainly by a desire to pro-
vide a political counterweight to Charlemagne.

Besides attacking the problem of Geoffrey’s motives, to which he
has brought some significant contributions, Mr Gerould has also
attacked in his last few pages the much-debated problem of the
origin of Arthurian romance. He asserts the theory, stated most
recently and explicitly by Edmond Faral,? that Geoffrey is the
fountainhead, not only, as everyone admits, of Arthurian pseudo-
history, but also of the Round Table cycle. He calls Geoffrey un-
equivocally ‘the father of Arthurian romance,’ * and later states
that ‘without him there might never have been any Arthurian
romance at all.’ Though Mr Gerould admits the existence of the
Britonum nugae, tales about Arthur to which William of Malmesbury
alludes, he asserts that we shall probably never know their extent
and precise character, and practically denies that they were co-
herent and well organized. He admits that they furnished sugges-
tions to the romancers.’ But Mr Gerould clearly maintains that not
they, but Geoffrey’s Historia, provoked an interest in Arthur in the
literary circles of the day, and determined the character of the ro-
mances of the Round Table. That is what he must mean when he
calls Geoffrey ‘the father of Arthurian romance.’

Now, no one doubts that Geoffrey’s work stimulated interest in
Arthur, particularly among the learned, and that through Wace he

1 J. Loth, Contributions a ’ Etude des Romans de la Table Ronde (1912), p. 68. Zs. fiir
Franzisische Sprache, XII (1890), 254.

* J. Bédier and P. Hazard, Histoire de la Littérature Francaise Illustrée (Paris: Hachette,
19238) I, 19.

3 Speculum, II (1927), 35. 4 Ibid., pp. 48 f.

5 Ibid., p. 34. 6 Tbid., p. 48. 7 Tbid., p. 49.

20 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

affected courtly and literary circles. Nor does anyone doubt that
he determined the character of the genre which we may best call
Arthurian pseudo-history, of which Wace’s Brut is an example.
The issue arises only in connection with that vast body of material
properly called romance, of which Chrétien’s Erec is the earliest
surviving example. Its characteristic preoccupation is not with wars
and conquests and the founding of cities, but with strange loves and
mysterious adventures: it tells ‘of turneys and of trophies hung, of
forests and enchantments drear, where more is meant than meets
the ear.’ The issue is: did Geoffrey of Monmouth inspire this liter-
ature and determine its character? Or is it in the main a natural
flowering of the Celtic tales about Arthur?

Mr Gerould’s view stands in sharp distinction to that of certain
eminent scholars. Gaston Paris has said that the verse romances
‘ne doivent rien a Gaufrei de Monmouth,’ ' a statement that must be
qualified to the extent that some verse romances were influenced
by Wace. Mr Kittredge, moreover, twenty-five years ago expressed
an opinion which has been borne out since that time by an ever-
increasing body of scholars. His noteworthy statement of the prob-
lem at issue runs as follows:

Something produced a great change in the literature of France in the
twelfth century, — that is to say, in the literature of the western world,
for at no assignable time could French literature have been charged with
more momentous consequences to the course of European literary history.
That something professes to be the emptying into French literature of a
large body of Celtic material, — not a little leaven but a huge mass, oper-
ating with extraordinary rapidity and with an effect still traceable not only
in subtle ways but even in such obvious phenomena as the externals of
plot and dramatis personae. Was this material Celtic, and if so, how did
it come, and whence? . . . The specific results of our study [Arthur and
Gorlagon] are to emphasize once more the importance of Irish material
(and even ‘modern Irish’ folklore) in settling these questions. They fall
in with what is coming to be more and more recognized as the correct view,
— the opinion that a considerable amount of the Celtic material that made
its way into France actually came from Ireland, and further, that the func-
tion of Wales as an intermediary must not be overlooked simply because
early Welsh traditions are sparingly preserved.”

1 Romania, X (1881), 488. ? [Harvard] Studies and Notes, VIII (1903), 265 f.

%
%

”

MAR Sais AL Ra ik us

~~ a=

a ne i a

a
Pe

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 21

Mr Kittredge had already lent his authority to the view that
at least one branch of the Matiére de Bretagne, the lais, was further
transmitted to the Bretons, either directly by the Irish or through
the Welsh:

Thus closely associated with both countries, Wales might well have
served as intermediary in the transmission of Irish stories to Brittany."

Let us first consider Mr Gerould’s case. Although he does not
marshal his arguments on this fundamental question with ordered
precision, four points are discoverable.

I. ‘His |Geoffrey’s] was the notion of Arthur, I need scarcely say,
that persisted in all the romances except a few late ones of English
derivation. If Arthur became the centre for the exploits of the
knights of the Round Table, but himself took small part in them,
it was because his position had been fixed by Geoffrey as a world-
conqueror: he was too lofty a person to be involved in adventures by
the way.’* Now Geoffrey’s notion of Arthur as the great conqueror
of foreign realms, flinging defiance at the potentates of the earth,
pitting his own strength against a giant and a king, is precisely not
the notion of Arthur of the typical French romance, and it is precisely
such a late English romance as the alliterative Morte d’ Arthur which
revives Geoffrey’s conception. Does not Mr Gerould in his first
sentence mean the exact converse of what he says? And when it
comes to the conception of Arthur as the centre for exploits in which
he takes small part, it can by no means be fathered on Geoffrey, and
cannot with certainty be ascribed to the Carolingian epic. For
Kilhwch and Olwen, composed, according to M. Loth, before the His-
tory of the Kings of Britain,’ represents Arthur as the centre of exploits
in which he plays but a minor part. Welsh tradition uninfluenced
by Geoffrey, then, assigns to Arthur approximately the same role
as do the French romances of the twelfth century, and is the most
natural source of that concept. Even though the roi fainéant of the
chansons de geste may have influenced those romances, Geoffrey,

1 American Journal of Philology, VII (1886), 199.
2 Speculum, II, 49.
3 Revue Celtique, XXXII (1911), 436.

22 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

with his totally different concept, did not. This argument for
Geoffrey as the father of Arthurian romance carries little conviction.

II. Mr Gerould refers to ‘a set of stories developed in England
to enhance the glory of the English kings and minister to the pride
of nobles who had learned to call themselves English,’ and speaks of
their being ‘woven into romances.’! This set of stories must be
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book, since neither Mr Gerould nor anyone
else can point to a set of Arthurian stories, other than Geoffrey’s,
developed in England at this time with political purpose. We are
told, then, that Geoffrey’s stories were ‘woven into romances,’ and
the following ‘romancers’ are cited: Gaimar, Wace, Marie de France,
Thomas, Béroul, Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, and Wau-
chier de Denain. The fact of the matter is, of course, that the two
authors who used Geoffrey’s work directly and extensively, Gaimar
and Wace, were not romancers in any strict sense of the word, and
the rest, who were romancers, made no direct use of Geoffrey.
Chrétien, Thomas, and Robert de Boron used only Wace.? It has
yet to be shown that any of these poets, excepting the redactors of
Geoffrey, had ever read a line of the Historia. The lumping of
Wace’s and Gaimar’s work with true romances, as if they belonged
to the same class and tradition, does not contribute to scientific ac-
curacy. And the implication that the pseudo-historical tradition, of
which Geoffrey is the head, supplied the characteristic narrative
materials of Arthurian romance is as completely mistaken as that
it supplied the typical conception of Arthur.

III. A third argument, that Arthurian romance sprang from, and
was determined in its nature by, Geoffrey, is implied in the following.
After listing the twelfth-century romancers and noting their prove-
nance and court connections, Mr Gerould says: ‘What can be ascer-
tained from dialect and dedications indicates, accordingly, that the
Arthurian material was used in the first place by writers who either
had English or Norman connections, or at least were not nearly

1 Speculum, II, 50.

2 J. D. Bruce, Evolution of Arthurian Romance (1923), I, 37, note. Thomas, Tristan, ed.
Bédier (1902), II, 101: ‘Les emprunts de notre poéte & Wace sont nombreux, mais tout acces-
soires.’ Bruce, op. cit., I, 144: ‘Geoffrey, whom Robert, however, probably knew only through
Wace.’

_— — PS |

i
4

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 23

concerned with the prestige of the French kings as set over against
the English. Once popularized, of course, the stories belonged to
all the world, and were obviously used and embroidered by Conti-
nental writers without thought of any dynastic or national con-
siderations.’! The distinct implication is that not only Wace and
Gaimar, but also the other poets in the list who shared their political
sympathies, were motivated in their work by dynastic and national
considerations.’

Mr Gerould himself realizes how little this description applies to
Chrétien and makes an exception in his case. But what about the
Anglo-Normans, Marie de France and Thomas, to whom Mr
Gerould’s implication that the earliest insular romances were en-
gaged in exalting the political Arthur would apply, if at all? Only
two of Marie’s lais can be called Arthurian. One, Chievrefoil, deals
exclusively with the loves of Tristan and Isolt. The other, Lanval,
reflects no glory on Arthur and his court. Anything further removed
in spirit from the History of the Kings of Britain it would be hard
to imagine. The case of Thomas is worse, for though writing under
the patronage of the royal Angevin house,’ he assigns Arthur no
part in his poem, and the facts show that he eliminated Arthur from
a tradition in which he was already associated with Tristan. The
primitive Welsh triad of Tristan the swineherd, and the Ystoria
Trystan, containing an early form of the loves of Kaherdin and
Bringvain,‘ bring Arthur on the scene, while Continental tradition,
represented by Béroul, Eilhardt, and the prose romances, features
him prominently. It is Thomas, the Anglo-Norman court poet, and
his redactors who alone of Tristan romancers seem disinclined to
contribute to the glory of Arthur. There is no foundation whatso-
ever for the theory that Arthurian romance, as distinct from pseudo-
history, first issued from those politically attached to the English

1 Speculum, II, 50 f.

2 Mr Gerould may have intended his words to apply only to Gaimar and Wace, but by
including them with the romancers he has courted misunderstanding.

3 Modern Language Review, XVII (1922), 24-28. Mr Gerould’s remark that Thomas’
poem is ‘by general consent’ among the earliest of the romances, and his dating, 1155-70,
ignore the work of Wilmotte, Foerster, Miss Schoepperle, Ranke, and Kelemina.

* Romania, LIII (1927), 95.

24 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

throne, in an effort to counterbalance the renown of Charlemagne by
depicting a more glorious hero and conqueror in Uther’s son.

On the contrary, there is striking evidence that, in Geoffrey’s
own time, Frenchmen, authors of Carolingian epics, took kindly to,
and even used, the materials of Arthurian romance. In the Couron-
nement Louis, which may be dated about 1130,! we twice meet the
phrase ‘tot l’or d’ Avalon,’ * evidence that the riches of Avalon had
become proverbial in French literary circles which knew not Geoffrey
and had no interest in anti-French propaganda. More extraordinary
and more significant is the discovery that one of the earliest Carolin-
gian epics, produced at St Denis under the very mantle, so to speak,
of the French monarchy, is largely made up of Celtic material. The
Pélerinage Charlemagne was composed to celebrate the fair of Lendit,
instituted at St Denis in 1109; Voretzsch dates the poem soon after
this,’ and scholars generally agree that it belongs to the first half of
the century. It is regarded as a puzzle because of its grotesque
conjunction of pious and comic elements.‘ The pious element can
be easily isolated and identified as monkish advertising of the relics
of the Passion at St Denis. The rest can with almost equal clarity
be derived from the Matiére de Bretagne. Thurneysen pointed out
that Bishop Turpin’s gab bore so close a relation to the feats of Irish
heroes that it could best be explained as ‘an afterglow of old Celtic
story-telling.” > Mr K. G. T. Webster, in a study endorsed by

1 Couronnement Louis, ed. E. Langlois (1920), p. vii; (1888), p. clxx. I am of course aware
that the eight extant MSS are of the thirteenth century or later. But since the phrase ‘ L’or
d’Avalon’ occurs in all eight MSS, and is twice used in laisse xliii, which contains examples
of the linguistic and phonological evidence (for instance, the absence of s in the nom. sing. of
sire) on which Langlois relies for date, it must have belonged to the original poem. It is worth
noting that, though Langlois (p. clxix) assigns the composition of the poem to the Ile de
France, he emphasizes (pp. Iviii, clxxiv) the importance in the third branch (ll. 1430-2224) of
legends drawn from Poitiers and of localizations at Poitiers and in Brittany. It would be
precisely in these regions, I believe, that a French author before 1130 would be most likely
to come in contact with vigorous Arthurian traditions. Cf. Romania, LIII (1927), 89 f.

2 Couronnement Louis, ed. Langlois (1888), II, ll. 1796, 1827.

3 Voretzsch, Einfiihrung in das Studium der altfrz. Literatur (3d ed., Halle: Niemeyer,
1925), p. 183.

4 J. Bédier, Légendes Epiques, ed. 1913, IV, 153.

5 R. Thurneysen, Keltoromanisches, pp. 18-21. Cf. the vows in Meraugis and the Vulgate
Lancelot. Cf. Romania, XLI (1912), 531.

iM
5

ihe Nie

Si nS Sarees as,

»
oat

Neb Tabata 3

eee orn ree

oo eat

ceed ye Sh Bias Yn rs Ba

Sai ag SRS

ide

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 25

Schofield ! and which M. Bédier has termed ‘excellente,’ ? connected
the revolving castle of Hugo with Irish legend,’ and the twelve
couches surrounding one superior couch with the identical arrange-
ment in Conchobar’s palace.‘ He has also found clear analogues to
the story itself in King Arthur and King Cornwall, Diu Krone, and
The Turk and Gawain. Gaston Paris and Mr Kittredge found other
clear analogues respectively in Rigomer ® and Arthur and Gorlagon.®
I myself have shown how Hugo’s palace, turning like a wheel and
supplied with images blowing horns, is paralleled by the similar
castle in Arthur of Little Britain, and, like it, must go back to an Irish
original.’ Mr Cross and Mrs Laura Loomis are about to publish
studies of the Celtic elements in the Pélerinage. Two solutions are
conceivable for the extraordinary number of Celtic and Arthurian
parallels to the Pélerinage Charlemagne: either by some strange collu-
sion the romancers seized upon this one chanson de geste out of the
mass, pillaged it rather thoroughly, but unanimously rejected any-
thing Carolingian or pious; or the advertiser of St Denis seized on
a story which has every mark of being a genuine Arthurian tale,
made Charlemagne the hero, dovetailed it into the already existing
legend of Charlemagne’s journey to Jerusalem, and developed the
inherent comedy of the Arthurian situations with true esprit gaulois.
The first explanation is fantastic. The latter must be the truth, and
is the view to which Schofield and Webster incline.* It demonstrates
once more that the Matiére de Bretagne did not first win popularity
in literary circles because of Geoffrey’s book; even less because of
sympathy with the political implications of that book.

IV. A fourth argument for the dependence of the Arthurian
romances on Geoffrey is explicitly set forth by Mr Gerould. Since,
in his opinion, it has not been shown that coherent, well-organized
tales of Arthur existed before Geoffrey, therefore without him there

1 W. H. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, pp. 152 f.

2 Bédier, Légendes Epiques, IV, 153, note.

5 Englische Studien, XXXVI (1905-06), 356, n. 2.

4 Ibid., p. 366.

5 Histoire Littéraire de la France, XXX, 111.

6 [Harvard] Studies and Notes, VIII, 212 f.

7 R.S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 224, 172-175.
8 Schofield, op. cit., pp. 152 f.; Englische Studien, XXXVI, 367-369.

26 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

might never have been any Arthurian romances at all. ! The answer
is that both the Pélerinage Charlemagne and the Modena sculpture
show that well-rounded, elaborate tales did exist before Geoffrey,
and later furnished material to the romances, both verse and prose.
Mr Gerould relegates to a footnote the following remark: ? ‘About
the evidence from the reliefs [sic] in Lombardy, there is still the
gravest doubt.’ I shall not here recapitulate the evidence from docu-
ments, from the history of sculpture and architecture, from military
costume, which combines to show that the Arthurian relief at Mo-
dena is to be dated between 1099 and 1106. That evidence I pub-
lished, in 1924, in the journal of the College Art Association; * in
1925, in Nuovi Studi Medievali,* I pointed out that M. Male, who
alone among archaeologists assigns the sculpture to as late a date
as 1160, is not to be relied on for dates in general and this date in
particular. More recently in my Celtic Myth and Arthurian Ro-
mance,® and in Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle
Loomis, I have presented my arguments on this capital matter.
Many of the most competent judges in archaeology and the history
of romance have assured me of their agreement.

There has been ample time to dispute my argument, but the only
challenge so far published is that of M. Deschamps in the Monu-
ments et Mémoires, Fondation Piot, XXVIII (1927), 69 ff. He at-
tributes the sculpture to the influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth,
and dates it about the middle of the century. How much weight we
should attach to his literary opinions may be judged by M. Des-
champs’s statement that the Historia Regum Britanniae, ‘s’il n’ était
pas entiérement original, sil laissait supposer des emprunts a des
légendes anciennes, était toutefois la source de toutes les compositions
littéraires racontant les exploits du roi Artur et ses compagnons.’ He
points out not a single detail derived from Geoffrey, and fails to
note that Arthur’s Queen has a different name from that which
Geoffrey gives her, and that the names Isdernus and Galvaginus are
both nearer the Welsh than the forms in the Historia, and are there-

1 Speculum, II, 48. 2 Tbid.
3 Art Bulletin, VI (1924).
* Vol. IT (1925-26), p. 105. 5 Page 7.

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 27

fore independent, if not earlier. On the literary side M. Deschamps’s
case could not be weaker. On the archaeological side, he has much
to say that is worthy of attention, but again there are fatal weak-
nesses. He ignores Mr Porter’s various arguments for a connection
between Bari and Modena; he discusses the sculptural style of every-
thing but the archivolt in question; and in the matter of armor he
is so incautious as to state that the Bayeux Embroidery is ‘datée
généralement des environs de 1125.’ This opinion he would find few
French scholars of eminence to corroborate,' and it is completely
refuted by the fact that the rectangular ‘chest-protector’ has been
pointed out on no later monument (except the embroidery) than
1023, and that the closest parallel in armor is found in a manuscript
completed by 1072.2. If M. Deschamps could produce a warrior
from a dated monument of the middle of the twelfth century as close
to those represented at Modena in hauberk, pennon, shield, and
helmet-form as those that I reproduced from a manuscript of
1109,° then his argument would deserve serious consideration. But
the examples of armor froin the middle of the century that I cited
would only show more clearly the weakness of his case.

The fact is, if we study Arthurian romance, both verse and prose,
with our eyes on the Modena sculpture, instead of on Geoffrey of
Monmouth, the whole development of that vast literature gradually
becomes comprehensible. Foerster, though opposed on principle to
the existence of any romance before Chrétien, nevertheless admitted
that the sculpture long antedated Chrétien, that it illustrated a
scene from one of those numerous contes bretons to which there is
frequent reference, and that it found echoes in the literature of the
Round Table.‘ In other words, it represents a stage in the develop-
ment of Arthurian story, which, except for the reflection in the
Pélerinage Charlemagne, is lost to us. It stands in the direct line of

1 Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires, 1924, p. 118; Bibliotheque de U Ecole des
Chartes, LXXXII (1921), 157 ff.; Bulletin Monumentale, 1913, pp. 129 ff.; C. Enlart, Manuel
@ Archéologie, III, 25.

2 Art Bulletin, VI (1923), 6.

3 Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis.

* Zs. fiir Romanische Philologie, XXII (1898), 248; W. Foerster, Kristian von Troyes:
Worterbuch (1914), 19*, n. 2.

28 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

descent of the romances. We should properly expect to find here
the solution of many riddles, and our expectations are not vain.

First, the Modena sculpture indicates the organic connection of
the romances with the contes bretons. It has been shown to represent
that famous traditional story, the abduction and rescue of Guine-
vere. It contains precise details that reappear in Hartmann von
Aue’s Iwein, Durmart le Gallois, and the Vulgate Lancelot.

Secondly, it proves the organic connection of the contes bretons
with Welsh and Irish legend. When the story of the sculpture is
reconstructed, it reveals its descent from the famous Irish story of
the abduction and rescue of Blathnat,? from which the Welsh episode
of Blodeuwedd is also descended.*

Thirdly, the sculpture illustrates how mythological elements
penetrated into Arthurian romance. A long line of scholars, from
Gaston Paris down, has noted the presence of these elements; my
own work, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance, is mainly concerned
with them. Scholars with an incurable dislike of myths may avert
their eyes from Gawain’s solar traits, the demonstrable descent of
‘“Morgain la déesse’ from Matrona, Celtic goddess of the waters,‘ or
of Mabon from Apollo Maponos,° the references to the land from
whence no man returns,® and so forth. But there they are, facts
which demand explanation. Now the famous Irish story on which
the Modena sculpture is ultimately based contains three important
personages. Cuchulinn is the son of a god and a goddess, and his
solar traits are well known.’ Curoi possesses traits which, in combi-
nation, leave no doubt of his originally mythic nature.* He declares
that, however great his height,’ he gives light to the household, but
not burning. His special function is to journey over the whole
world. He leaves his home at nightfall for an Oriental expedition into
Seythia, his return is in the morning, and every night during his
absence his castle revolves. The meaning of this can be verified by

1 R.S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 8-10.

2 Ibid., pp. 10-14. 3 Ibid., pp. 17 f. 4 Ibid., pp. 191-193.

5 J. Rhys, Hibbert Lectures (1887), pp. 27 f.

6 R.S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 213 f.

7 Ibid., pp. 47. 8 Ibid., p. 49.

® The literal translation of ‘cacha be dim airdi’ (E. Windisch, Irische Texte, I, 302) is
‘however great I may be in my height.’ There is a double entendre intended here.

4
%
q
j

4
‘

5
}

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 29

gazing at the heavens with the eyes of primitive man. By day no
movement appears in the sun’s home, the sky; but as soon as the
sun departs and the stars are out, all the heavens seem to be turning
slowly.!. The damsel for whom Cuchulinn and Curoi contend is
called Blathnat, ‘Little Flower.’ The battle for her lasts from No-
vember | till the middle of spring. If this is not myth or the remains
of myth, there is no such thing. One is not surprised that a lady
named Florence in Arthur of Little Britain, who betrays not only in
her name but also in her réle her derivation from Blathnat, is said
to be made in the exact image of Proserpine.?- And here in the
Modena sculpture we see what was once an Irish myth in process
of transformation into an Arthurian romance.

Fourthly, the names on the sculpture shed an extraordinary light
on Arthurian nomenclature. One of them, Winlogee, is obviously
the Breton name Winlowen,’ which has been substituted for the
Welsh Gwenhwyvar. It descends into Arthurian romance as Guin-
loie, Guenloie, and Gwendoloena.* This Breton influence on the
nomenclature of Arthurian romance has been pointed out by Zim-
mer,® and Dr Brugger,® and brought into connection with the fact
that the Arthurian contes are always referred to the ‘Bretons,’ not
to the ‘Gallois.’ The Modena sculpture also furnishes the earliest
form of the name Gawain, Galvagin(us), and thereby gives us the
clue to the derivation not only of this name but also of Lancelot’s,
so that we can trace them both back to Welsh divine epithets and
ultimately to Irish gods. The confirmatory evidence is so copious
that I can only refer the reader to my own discussion.’

All four of Mr Gerould’s assertions or suggestions in support of
his view that Geoffrey was the father of Arthurian romance must be

1 The Irish author says that ‘it was as swift as a mill-stone.’ Probably the simile was in-
serted by a redactor who did not know that the allusion was to the star-lit sky. The comparison
with a mill-stone was retained, however, and reappears in the French and German versions
of the Mule sans Frein story. See R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, p. 113.

2? Ibid., pp. 168-175.

3 J. Loth, Chrestomathie bretonne (1890), p. 147.

* De Ortu Walwanii, ed. J. D. Bruce (1913), p. 85; Vderroman, ed. H. Gelzer (1913),
p. lvi; Chevalier as Deux Espees, ed. Foerster, 1877.

5 Zs. fiir Franzisische Sprache, XII (1890), 231 ff.

§ Ibid., XLIX (1927), 201 ff., 381 ff.
7 R.S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 62-66, 91-96.

30 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

rejected. Geoffrey passed on neither his concept of Arthur, nor his
incidents, nor his political coloring to the romancers of the twelfth
century, and they drew for their materials on stories demonstrably
current before Geoffrey. A well-recognized test of paternity is
resemblance, and a paterfamilias whose offspring resembled him no
more than Marie’s Lanval or Thomas’s Tristan or Robert de Boron’s
Joseph resembles the Historia Regum Britanniae, would rightly be
the subject of ribald jests. Let us turn from a theory so baseless to
the mature judgment of Gaston Paris. The romances of the twelfth
century owe nothing directly, and comparatively little through
Wace, to Geoffrey of Monmouth.

In a recent article ' regarding the Irish connections of William of
Malmesbury and Glastonbury Abbey, Mr Clark Slover has much
to say that is valuable and sound. But he seems to go far beyond
his evidence when he implies that William was active in the trans-
formation of Irish legendary themes into Arthurian romances.
‘William was interested in Irish material; he had access to Irish
documents; and he was actively engaged in the adaptation of Irish
material to the needs of Glastonbury Abbey. The Glastonbury
advertisers, moreover, used Arthurian material. The work of William,
therefore, added to the Irish influence already established at Glaston-
bury and provided a means of contact between Arthurian romance
and Irish tradition.’? No one familiar with questions concerning
the Matiére de Bretagne will deny that the Glastonbury advertisers
used Arthurian material, that Glastonbury monks were acquainted
with Irish legend, or that Arthurian romance has drawn heavily on
Irish legend. But to draw the conclusion, as Mr Slover seems to do,
that here at Glastonbury, under William of Malmesbury’s inspira-
tion, the story patterns of Irish saga were in considerable quantity
revamped for the purposes of monastic propaganda into Arthurian
romances, is to leave out of consideration certain essential facts.

Of the four pieces of Arthurian propaganda which Mr Slover
cites as emanating from Glastonbury, all are generally believed to
have been composed after William of Malmesbury’s death.* The

Speculum, II (1927), 268. 2 Ibid., p. 283.
3 Ibid., p. 269. On date of Vita Gildae, cf. Bruce, Evolution, I, 196, note. On De Anti-

Pe ea RS a

A sta sr Tee

wes 6

“
‘a
&

gS aa ae Tee

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 31

Arthurian passages in William’s De Antiquitate have been shown to
be interpolations, and Mr Slover himself does not deny this. William
of Malmesbury’s connection with Arthurian romance (as distin-
guished from history) is confined to the references in the Historia
Anglorum to the discovery of the tomb of Walwen in Wales, and to
the idle tales of the Bretons, which he characterizes as ‘foolish dreams
of deceitful fables.’ This description hardly sorts with the view
that he was engaged in manufacturing or manipulating just such
fables for the glory of Glastonbury. Again, the parts of Arthurian
romance which are generally admitted to incorporate Irish saga
material show no trace of Glastonbury influence, for example, the
various versions of the Beheading Test and of the Transformed Hag.
Furthermore, what are we to make of the considerable number of
Welsh names and story motifs which are found in the romances,
particularly in Perlesvaus,? the very romance which Mr Slover
rightly brings forward as produced under Glastonbury influence?
Finally, we cannot leave out of account the marked Breton coloring
in Arthurian nomenclature and topography.

It is an axiom of all science that that theory is true which accounts
for the greatest number of phenomena, provided it be not totally
incompatible with any. Mr Gerould’s assertion that Geoffrey of
Monmouth was the father of Arthurian romance, and Mr Slover’s
more cautious suggestion that William of Malmesbury was instru-
mental in its beginnings, are incompatible with many facts and
explain very few. On the other hand, the theory to which the
Modena sculpture leads us does explain an enormous mass of facts,
and is incompatible, so far as I can discover, with none. Arthurian
scholars have been divided into three groups: Nutt, Kittredge,
Brown, Miss Schoepperle, and Cross stressing the Irish contribu-
tion; Rhys and Ferdinand Lot, the Welsh; and Zimmer, Foerster,
and Brugger, the Breton. All three groups have submitted powerful
evidence, and no theory of Arthurian origins which does not accord

quitate passages, cf. J. A. Robinson, Two Glastonbury Legends (1926), p. 18; Somersetshire
Historical Essays (1921), pp. 21 f.; Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass’n, XVIII (1903), 474 ff. On Perlesvaus
date cf. Mod. Phil., XVII (1919-20), 165, 611.

1 Studies and Notes, X, 40.

2 R.S. Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 73 f., 201-204, 247 f.

32 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins

with their findings can hold the field. The theory suggested by the
Modena sculpture reconciles all three schools, and accounts for a
great deal more besides. It fits into that scheme of derivation and
transmission I have quoted above from Mr Kittredge. It may be
sketched as follows, and is of course open to modifications of detail.

Dyfed and Gwynedd in western Wales were inhabited until a late
period by Goidels distinct from their Brythonic neighbors. They
possessed traditions almost identical with those of their southern
Irish kinsfolk, but they apparently knew almost nothing of the Ulster
cycle.! The oldest Welsh prose, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi,
is localized in precisely these regions and is permeated with Goidelic
myth and folklore motifs.?, According to Mr Gruffydd, who knows
this literature better than any other scholar and whose forthcoming
study of Math is an epoch-making contribution to its understanding,
the Four Branches are in the main the product of these Goidels, who
in the course of time had exchanged their language for Welsh. There
is reason to believe that not only the figures of Bran, Pryderi, Gwri,
Blodeuwedd, Gilvaethwy, Llew, Arianrhod, Rhiannon, Arawn, and
Manawydan reappear in Arthurian romance, but also situations or
stories connected with the first four.’ Kilhwch and Olwen represents
a later stage, when the Goidelic material had mingled with Brythonic
mythology and the hero legends of Arthur, Owain, Myrddin, and
so forth. Neither the Welsh nor the Cornish, who shared with them
in the development of the Matiére de Bretagne, were capable of
propagating it outside Celtic territory, for they did not come to
speak French in any numbers till the end of the eleventh century,
and the English were naturally not receptive.

Meanwhile, however, these more than half-mythical stories had
passed on to the Bretons, who, at least on the French border, had
been bilingual for a century or more. The French laughed at the
Breton belief in Arthur’s return, but were fascinated by the tales as
adapted by Breton reciters. The Bretons reached Italy by the end of
the eleventh century, as Senator Rajna’s evidence from proper names

1 I. B. John, Mabinogion (1902), p. 16.
2 Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Soc., 1912-13, pp. 14-26.
3 R. S. Loomis, op. cit., pp. 148 f., 151 f., 201 ff., 217 ff., 233 f., 308, 337.

— o.hlUrlC OhlUlC kl Om

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Arthurian Origins 33

and the Modena sculpture show. At St Denis they must have made
such an impression that the composer of the Pélerinage was moved
to borrow heavily from them. Then we begin to get in England the
references to the ‘Britonum nugae,’ ‘fabulosi Britones,’ and so
forth; ' never, significantly, do we find the specific words for Welsh
or Welshmen used, but always the words which most plausibly apply
to the Bretons. One Welshman, Bleheris, however, can be shown to
have played an important part in bringing a Bretonized Tristan
romance to the court of Poitou.?, Another Welshman, Geoffrey of
Monmouth, using more or less Breton pseudo-history, raised Arthur
to respectability in learned circles. Thenceforth the evolution of the
Arthurian cycle is comparatively clear, provided we recognize that
throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was always
this oral tradition, stretching right back to Celtic heathendom, upon
which poets and prose-writers could and did draw for the basic
narrative framework and many details of their romances. Malory
even, in the dawn of the Renaissance, using doubtless a lost French
romance, preserves for us the weeping queens who took away Arthur
for healing — a feature which, as Mr Cross and Miss Schoepperle
independently proved, rests on the healing of the Irish hero Fraich.*

Though one may concede that politics had much to do with the
rise and development of the pseudo-historical Arthur in Geoffrey
and his redactors, the far greater popularity of the romantic Arthur
and his knights is susceptible of no such explanation. It was the
inherent charm of the tales themselves, the talent or genius of the
conteurs, of whom Bleheris was presumably the greatest, that made
the Matiére de Bretagne a literary fashion, not only of the twelfth
century, but also of centuries to follow.

1 For a collection of passages, cf. Moyen Age, XIX (1916), 234. On the interpretation of
the words, cf. Brugger’s powerful, if over-truculent, article in Zs. fiir Franzisische Sprache,
XX! (1898), 79 ff.

2 Mod. Lang. Notes, XX XIX (1924), 320; Romania, LIII (1927), 82.
3 Vassar Medieval Studies (1923), p. 19; Manly Anniversary Studies (1924), p. 284.

New York Ciry.

MASTER HENRY OF AVRANCHES AS AN
INTERNATIONAL POET

By JOSIAH COX RUSSELL

Exul perambulo mundum
Et per barbarias inglorius erro poeta.

HE wandering entertainer of the Middle Ages, jongleur, min-

strel, or poet, is an intriguing subject.' We easily conjure up
pictures of his errant life, intermittent poverty, and occasional
triumphs at feudal courts, and in our imagination we share his
vagabond life, the pinch of his poverty, and the joy of his success.
Imagination admittedly paints a large portion of the picture of any
one jongleur or poet, because the facts of the life of such a character
are usually obscure, and the deficit of information about one is
filled out with deductions from the lives of others. Rather more
than usual information, however, is available concerning the career
of Master Henry of Avranches, the author of the lines quoted above.
To reconstruct his life we have more than one hundred and fifty
of his poems, a long diatribe against him by a rival, Michael of
Cornwall, a few documentary references from the Continent, and
an illuminating series of items from the Public Record Office,
London.2 From this evidence his career of nearly half a century
(1214-1260) emerges, the career of a wandering poet which touches
many of the important persons of that time.

Cosmopolitanism was the poet’s birthright: his father was a
Norman of Avranches, but the son was born in Germany, probably
in the last decade of the twelfth century. His early associations
are rather clearly with Cologne. Indeed he is possibly to be iden-
tified with the envoy, Master Henry of Cologne, who served Otto

1 No. 9, see Appendix B (pp. 58-63, below) for catalogue of poems. The following
abbreviations are used: MS. A = Cambridge University Library, MS. Dd.zi.78; MS. D =
MS. Cotton Vesp. D. V; MS. MA = Royal MS., 14 C.xiti; Diss. = my Master Henry of
Avranches (unpublished Harvard University diss., 1926). I wish to acknowledge here the
advice and encouragement given me so generously by Mr C. H. Haskins of Harvard University

during the research for, and preparation of, the material in this article.
2 See Appendiz A, pp. 55-58 below.

Master Henry of Avranches 35

IV at the court of King John in 1214. At any rate, his poems show
him writing for King John at that time and for Otto in 1215. By
1219 he is in England writing for ecclesiastical patrons until about
1227 when Peter des Roches fell from royal favor and left for a
crusade. A few years later he turns up again in Germany, which
he finds agitated by heretic-hunters and inhospitable to wanderers.
He is at the Papal Curia in 1232 and 1234. The imperial court
likewise attracted him while in Italy, and it is possible that he
travelled to Germany about 1235 in company with Frederick II.
Dean of Maastricht by 1237, he is caught in the disorders in the
diocese of Li¢ége of 1238 and soon returns to the Papal Curia, with
a story of the loss of his deanery and a castle. A considerable num-
ber of poems indicate his presence in France, but it is difficult to
date them accurately. If he is the Henry, Canon of Avranches, who
appears at the Papal Curia in 1234, he was in France just previous
to this. In fact, rather nebulous evidence would place several pieces
from that time as written at Le Mans and Angers. He wrote for
King Louis IX in 1241. Two years later he is in the employ of
Henry III, and from then until Easter, 1260, English records pre-
serve information as to his presence or absence. Two gaps in the
records, 1245-1250 and a part of the years 1253-1255, apparently
indicate further wanderings of which no positive trace remains.
The poet probably died in the royal service and did not long survive
Matthew Paris (71259), who owned the largest collection of his
poetry. ?

In the course of his travels Master Henry wrote for one pope,
two emperors, three kings, six archbishops, more than a dozen
bishops, and a scattering of lesser dignitaries, feudal and ecclesi-
astical; this we learn from his poems. About seventy, or roughly
one-half of his known works, are for this group of patrons: for his
other pieces the probability of patronage rapidly shades off into
possibility and bare conjecture. The list includes the archbishops
of Bourges, Canterbury, Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, and bishops
of Angers, Beauvais, Chichester, Clermont, Durham, London,

1 MS. A, see Appendiz B (pp. 59-61, below). This outline of the poet’s travels is a sum-
mary of Diss., chap. V.

36 Master Henry of Avranches

Norwich, Salisbury, Spoleto, and Winchester—a remarkable
geographical distribution.

This dispersion is, however, more apparent than actual. At the
Papal Curia alone he wrote a score of poems for six patrons, Pope
Gregory IX,’ John Blund, Archbishop-elect of Canterbury ? (127),
Nicholas of Piacenza, Patriarch-elect of Constantinople,(111, 113),
Henry of Molenark, Archibshop of Cologne (71), Simon de Sully,
Archbishop of Bourges (68, 128), Hugh de la Tour, Bishop of
Clermont (108), and Milo de Nanteuil, Bishop of Beauvais.’
Likewise he must have found many of his English patrons at the
royal court. During the minority of Henry III they include Eustace
Falconberg (38, 47), William de Sainte-Mére-Eglise (8), Ralph
Neville (39, 40), Geoffrey de Bocland (42), Pandulph (49), Peter
des Roches (23), and Archbishop Stephen Langton (9, 44). In
several instances the poet dwells upon acts taking place at royal
command or suggestion.‘ The long period of service at the English
court later (1243-1260) has been mentioned; but composition at
other courts is not so easily detected unless the patron is. king or
emperor. In general two-fifths of his pieces were demonstrably
written at court, one-fifth probably, one-fifth possibly, and one-fifth
clearly elsewhere. The importance of the court as a sphere of the
poet’s activity is very marked.

The higher ecclesiastics, pope, archbishops, bishops, and abbots,
seem to have been generous patrons: for them Master Henry com-
posed at least nine-tenths of his Latin lines. Yet, excepting the
pope and the German archbishops, who were also great secular
lords, these patrons do not seem to have extended him hospitality
away from court. A poem on the building of Salisbury Cathedral
(20) is the only indication that Master Henry visited an episcopal
see. Apparently the bishop at home had little time or inclination
for patronage: probably the competition or leisure of the court were
necessary to stimulate him thus to encourage the art of poetry.

1 Nos. 89, 112, 114, 116, 117, 122. Nos. 127 and 128 are addressed to the pope in behalf
of patrons, and no. 33 concerns the author at the Curia.

2 When reference is to only one or two poems the numbers will be given in parenthesis
in the text.

3 Nos. 69, 72, 73, 78. * Nos. 8, 38-40.

vig
der
the
aba
of (
Alb

Master Henry of Avranches 37

In reconstructing Master Henry’s travels the course must in
general be drawn from court to court. However, some allowance
must be made for the half of his poems where patronage is less
apparent — religious verse in considerable quantity for instance.
An indefinite but probably a large place in the poet’s life was occupied
by monasteries whose patronage need have left few marks. As a
clerk, a constant traveller, and a writer of religious verse he was
triply open to their hospitality, and certain definite evidence of
his obligations to them remains.

Master Henry was one of several writers who enjoyed the favor
of Abbot Henry Longchamp of Croyland.! Peterborough owned two
manuscripts of his poems, one containing the Vita S. Oswaldi et
Aliorum,? whose introduction lauds Abbot Martin and several other
officers and monks of Bury. Ramsey Abbey possesses some of his
poems, * and a squib is made upon the name of one of its abbots
(53). We may conjecture that the long poem upon SS Crispin and
Crispinian (28) was written for the monastery of St Crispin at Sois-
sons, and that St Edmundsbury and Dunstable were the recipients of
the legends of St Edmund (24) and St Fremund.* With considerable

vigor the poet denounces the archbishops of Mainz and Trier for
denying hospitality to wandering clerks in the religious houses of
their provinces.’ For the Prior of Canterbury he wrote a piece
about St Thomas (9). He calls himself serwus Pantaleonis, probably
of Cologne, in four lines giving thanks for hospitality received at St
Albans (92):

Do grates, Albane, tibi, qui Pantaleonis
Me seruum gratis aluisti, duc bone, donis

1 See my “Literature at Croyland Abbey under Henry Longchamp (1191-1237).” Colo-
rado College Publications, General Series, No. 148 (December, 1927).

2 No. 48. See Thomas Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (London, 1748), p. 396
under Henry of Huntingdon, and p. 219 under “‘Henry de Davench,”’ excellent illustrations
of the way in which the authorship of Master Henry of Avranches’ poetry has been obscured.

3 Prosae Magistri Henrici Versificatoris. See Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, etc., ed.
W. D. Macray, Rolls Series (London, 1886), p. 365.

* No. 22. St Fremund’s body is alleged to lie there [F. G. Holweck, A Biographical Dic-
tionary of the Saints (St Louis, 1924) under Fremund]. The Bollandists suggest Dorchester
as his burial place (Acta SS, May, II, 656).

5 No. 79. He refers to the same situation some years later in No. 118.

38 Master Henry of Avranches

Anglorum prothomartiris, aue! Tu me tibi probum
Agnoscas. Fateor mihi, te, uenerande, patronum.

The poet is quoted by Matthew Paris,’ and wrote a begging poem
to Abbot William of Trumpington (94).

Whether at monastery or at court Master Henry faced audiences
which he must convert into patrons, who would reward him to the
extent that he interested them in his poetry. For a time his success
seems small: a whole series of appeals for largess come from the
years 1214-1223,? whose tone is even more significant than the
number. He thanks Richard Marsh for a small gift because (34)

Res me parva iuuet, spes in magna nocet.

The Prior of Canterbury had failed to remunerate him (9) for the
Sancti scripta Thome miracula.* Poverty-stricken and despondent,
he felt that:

Nec uia lata patet, sed inangulor hic apud Anglos
Ingratosque meis prelatos sencio donis.

However, only a few begging poems are of later date: to Frederick
II (11) and Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz (120, 123) about 1232-
1235, and roughly a decade later to Bishop William Raleigh of
Winchester (153) and William of York, Bishop of Salisbury (154).
These are rather casual and signify nothing as to his actual pecuniary
condition. Indeed after 1223 his attitude never seems warped by
poverty, and we may perhaps assume that by this time he had
successfully mastered the essentials of securing patrons for himself.
The years 1214-1223 stand out as the formative and experimental
period in his life. The abundant pieces of this period make clear
what he discarded as well as what he developed, both in his poetry
and in his attitude toward his patrons.

1 Chronica Maiora, iii, 189, 190, 391, also iii, 43 and Appendiz B of this article. Item 11,
Appendiz A, is dated at St Albans.

2 Nos. 9, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46, 49, 94.

3 If this is the Life of St Thomas (no. 1) as Winkelmann believed [Monatschrift fiir die
Geschichte Westdeutschlands, IV (1878), 337], the Prior seems to have taken the following
lines too seriously:

Ve michi, quod tacui celeberrima gesta uirorum
Qui pro lege Dei seruanda se posuerunt
Ierusalem murum contra Babilonis alumpnos.

and ]

upon
no. 1

and n

with «

Master Henry of Avranches 39

One all too obvious characteristic of Master Henry’s earlier
poetry in his preoccupation with himself and his accomplishments;
we see this in his lines to King John (37):

Nomen habes non inmerito diuina, Iohannes,
Gratia uoce sue conueniente rei
Ergo uel gratus summo uel gratia summi
Es pro parte mea casus utrique facit
Si summo gratus, ergo pietatis alumnus
Ergo pauperibus ferre teneris opem,
Ergo mihi cum sim pauper; si gratia summi,
Ergo dans quod habes, omnibus, ergo mihi,
Ergo sui proprie dicaris gratis sui
Enfatice gratis munus habebo tuum.

Two lines in praise of the king and the rest devoted to his own needs
to which, indeed, the first two form an introduction! It is gratia
and ergo. The frequency with which sic and ergo intrude in his
early verses suggests that the poet had recently studied logic.' Little
wonder his patrons were few!

Early in his career he tried his hand at fables (31); he composed
a debate-poem, The Knight and the Clerk (41) and a dialogue in

which a German has it that the English have tails and drink too
much beer; the German’s taunts and the Englishman’s vigorous
retaliation suggest student activity,’ later unmistakable in requests
for vacations (150, 151). Yet the place and date of the poet’s study
are quite obscure.* He recited upon Generation and Corruption
before a university group (35). Even Michael of Cornwall conceded

his proficiency in grammar: ‘

Gramaticalia scis, sed naturalia nescis,
Nec logicalia scis.

1 Nos. 21, 32, 37, 41-46, 93.

? No. 93. Cf. the statement of Jacques de Vitry, University of Pennsyloania Translations
and Reprints, II, iii, 18.

* Conjecture places his study of logic before 1214, and of advanced subjects about 1230
upon the basis of a remark in no. 118 and his apparent interests in the following years. Cf.
no. 100A; Diss., chap. V, note 27 ff.

* MS. MA, fol. 270r. Cf. the fragments, nos. 3, 5, 74; the longer pieces, nos. 13, 18, 103,
and nos. 159-161 by ‘Master Henry,’ who in one or more of these three is probably identical

with our poet.

40 Master Henry of Avranches

Judging from the paucity of these intellectual pieces, they were not
in great demand. This also holds for odd verse forms such as the
reversible line (54A):

Sacrum pingue dabo nunc macrum sacrificabo
Capris ira satur non apris appropriatur.

Another curious contrivance appears in two poems (40, 65) as

follows (40): '
Memor es et ut fias pastor gregis
Regis fauor prout competit
Petit iam uotis egencium
Opus est et necessarium.

Gradually in 1220-1224 Master Henry and his learning recede
into the background but only in proportion as the patron and his
interests advance. The clearest illustration of this change occurs
in the introductions to eight saints’ legends written from about
1218 to about 1232. The first, St Fremund (22), lacks an introduc-
tion. The blessings of St Hugh (95), St Thomas (1), and St Edmund
(24) are invoked in the next three. The patrons as well as the saints
come in for praise in the longer and more fulsome adulations of the
last four, St Guthlac (19) to Henry Longchamp, St Oswald (48)
to Abbot Martin of Bury, St Birin (23) to Peter des Roches, and
St Francis (89) to Pope Gregory IX. Even the later begging poems
emphasize the patron more than the poet.' The four later legends
declare themselves requested works which presupposes a certain
amount of popularity on the part of the poet. He had evidently
learned that “even court poets were courtiers first and poets
second.” *

Master Henry’s development as a courtier becomes more of an
achievement as we realize his egotistical and contentious disposition.
To Frederick II about 1232 he could assert (11):

Cum tua sic alios premat excellencia reges,
Sumque poesis ego supremus in orbe professor,

Dicendi, licet equiuoce, sumus ambo monarchi,
Et summum reputo, quo in hoc communico tecum,

1 Cf. nos. 9, 34, 38-40, 49, and 94 with the earlier poems, nos. 37, 42, 44, 46.
2 C. H. Haskins, ‘Henry II as a Patron of Literature,’ Essays in Mediaeval History
presented to T. F. Tout, edd. A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (Manchester, 1925), p. 76.

yy, °F eo ee

.
a

—_—

Master Henry of Avranches 41

which is only a little less presumptuous if we could be sure that he
had already written the Life of St Francis (89) for Gregory IX. He
was adept in vituperation. He tells how on entering a church at
Angers he beheld two asses braying in the choir (133): one was Peter
Siler to whom he devotes a dozen pieces,! all very acrimonious and
frequently advising Peter to be silent (silere). Peter Siler was prob-
ably the fellow-poet Peter who with Master Henry carried a contro-
versy to the Papal Curia (33), but his poetry is not known to have
survived. Neither have we Master Henry’s share of his controversy
with Michael of Cornwall.’

All that is known of the Cornishman is contained in his long
poem against Master Henry, but he depicts both himself and those
with whom he found favor quite clearly. His assertions are not
subtle: they are either too improbable to be true or too probable to
be false. He answers certain allegations of Master Henry. In the
language of Fuller, Henry “had traduced Cornwall as an incon-
siderable country, cast out by nature in contempt into a corner
of the land. Our Michael could not endure this affront, but full of
Poeticall fury falls upon the Libeller, take a tast (little thereof will
go far) of his strains.”* The court poet had poked fun at those
“strains,” and had called the Cornishman Michaeloto and Michabel.*
His attitude had been that of the patronizing cosmopolitan toward
the picturesque provincial. Michael was deeply insulted, and his
“Poeticall fury” raged throughout 1244 lines of extraordinary Latin.
Henry was a Thersites,° his father a thief and his mother a prostitute.®
That Henry was aged’ we may well believe, but let the mind’s eye
try to picture the poet in the following description: *

1 Nos. 129, 130, 182-144.

2 Michael’s poem is to be found in Cambridge Univ. Lib., MS. Ff. vi. 13; MS. Bodl. 851;
British Museum, MS. Cotton Titus A. XX,and MS. Royal 14, C, xiii (= MS.MA). In MS.
Bodl. Misc. 2188, late 13th cent., are Versus Magistri Michaelis de Poter de Cornubia, who
may be another poet since Master Henry’s enemy is usually given the surname ‘Blaunpayn.’

A trace of another controversy appears in Thomas Smith’s catalogue of the Cottonian
Library (1696, p. 92). MS. Cotton Vitell. D. VIII, now lost, contained an Altercatio inter
Magistrum Henricum de Albrincis et Leonium Teutonicum: Leonius Teutonicus may possibly
be a corruption of Ledulphus Teutonicus, who appears in a document of 1245 in England
(Liberate Roll 21, m 1).

’ Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England (London, 1662), p. 203.

* MS. MA, fol. 271v, col. 1. 5 Fol. 272v, 2. 6 Fol. 271r, 1.

7 Fol. 270v, 2. 8 Fol. 270r, 1.

42 Master Henry of Avranches

Est tibi gamba capri, crus passeris et latus apri,
Os leporis, catuli nasus, dens et gena muli,
Frons uetule, tauri caput, et color undique Mauri.

Michael undertakes to defend Cornwall and gives way to a rhapsody
on England.' His attitude was that of the proud provincial who
detested the supercilious cosmopolitan and objected strenuously
to the crowd of sophisticated continentals whom the king had
admitted to favor. England was good enough for him!

The Cornishman’s poem was popular. It was recited before
large and respectable audiences and was copied in several MSS.
The inscription on one MS. informs us that the poet read it before
the abbot of Westminster and the Dean of St Paul’s and afterwards
before the Bishop of Ely and the Chancellor of Cambridge, together
with the “university of masters.”* The latter part of the poem,
addressed to Hugh Mortimer, official of Canterbury,’ mentions this
reading at Cambridge: ‘

Clero presente Grantabrigie residente

Sese prebente mihi testes et perhibente
Hugo, presul Hely, librans metra laute fideli
Proposito celi michi mitram dans Michaeli

Decreuit pridem quod pro me protulite idem
Tudex illud idem quod clerus clamat ibidem.

At each reading the poet seems to have added verses; it is an
anti-royal outburst, attacking especially the king’s half-brothers: ®

Nulla ualentia sed uiolentia.

This may refer to the general roughness of these royal relatives or
more particularly to the sack of Bishop Hugh of Ely’s manor in
October, 1252.6 The poem itself was probably written soon after
this — one reading occuring on Wednesday after Purification’ and
another in Lent,* both probably in 1253. Michael’s grievances

1 Fol. 269v, 2. 2 MS. MA, fol. 269v.

3 Fol. 271r, 2. 4 Fol. 274r, 1.

5 Fol. 274r, 2.

6 Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, v, 348. The bishop died on August 9, 1254, sbid.,
v, 454.

7 MS. MA, fol. 271v. 1. 8 Fol. 271v, 2.

oe © Gis O86 ft oe eeelCUCU lk

Master Henry of Avranches 43

coincided with the then general dislike of the overbearing foreigners,
and it is not surprising that the poem was well received.

In Master Henry’s poetry the controversies of his patrons fre-
quently figure. Richard Marsh and Archbishop Henry of Cologne
struggle against their respective chapters of Durham (34) and
Cologne (71) in suits at London and Rome. Aldrich (Bishop of
Trent?) humiliates his enemies in the presence of a distinguished
company (106). William of Coulaines harasses Le Mans (145),
trying to force an unfit candidate into the archdeanery of Laval.
In petitions to Gregory IX the poet urges the claims of John Blund
as Archbishop-elect of Canterbury to a pallium (127) and of Arch-
bishop Simon de Sully of Bourges to jurisdictional supremacy over
the Archbishop of Bordeaux.' In a bit of political propaganda
Rome urges Innocent III to acknowledge Otto IV as emperor (21).
When the turbulent communes of the Duchy of Spoleto and the
March of Ancona try to force the deposition of their rector, Milo de
Nanteuil, all the poet’s sympathy is, as one might expect of a court
poet, with constituted authority.” It is thus highly probable that
Master Henry’s lost piece upon the trouble between King John and
the barons favored the king (98).

Master Henry’s sympathy seems as genuine as his antipathy.
Besides his difficulties at Ancona and Spoleto, Milo de Nanteuil
was in trouble with his diocese over debts, and with Louis [IX about
his county. Finally as he was leaving Italy, he was waylaid and
despoiled of his wealth.* Yet upon the bishop’s death in 1234 the
poet composed a short but sincere memorial extolling his courage
(126). Rather more conventional verses mourn the death of Robert
Passelewe in 1251 (148, 149). Both sympathy and humor appear
in a versification of Henry III’s speech to the surgeons attending
John Mansel’s broken leg (62). Of all his patrons the poet seems
closest to Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. He mentions
the bishop as a judge in the suit involving Richard Marsh (34)

1 No. 128. This controversy is also the subject of no. 68.

2 Nos. 69, 72, 73, 78.
’ Upon Milo’s difficulties see Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, MGH.SS. xxiii, 927, 936.
Auvray, no. 827; Boehmer-Ficker, no. 13097; L. H. Labande, Histoire de Beauvais (Paris,

1902), p. 74.

44 Master Henry of Avranches

about 1221, and wrote the Life of St Birin (23) at his request some
later. The poet’s departure from England about 1227 may have
been influenced by his patron’s fall from power. In an introductory
poem to Frederick II (11) the poet mentions Peter as a mutual
friend. John Blund, English chroniclers say, was Peter’s candidate
for Archbishop of Canterbury.’ Finally, he praises the bishop as
the rock of the Church (155), probably in 1235 when this belligerent
prelate was assisting the emperor in reducing Rome to papal
obedience.

The line between sympathy for and admiration of powerful
patrons is difficult to draw, that between admiration and flattery
of a capable patron even more so. Judgment of Master Henry’s
motives is complicated by the fact that the wide range of his interests
made it possible for him to appreciate without affectation men of
widely varying character. Because he was successful we may assume
that his gratulatory verse mirrors quite exactly the achievements
and distinctions upon which his patrons prided themselves.

There are about a score of such poems. Stephen Langton is the
greatest of English archbishops except St Thomas Becket (44).
Holding the capitals of David, Guiscard, Charlemagne, and Caesar,
Frederick II is the mightiest of those who might claim rank with
their predecessors (12). Eustace Falconberg (38) and Ralph Neville
(39, 40) become bishops and Nicholas of Piacenza advances from
Bishop of Spoleto to Patriarch of Constantinople (111, 113). Ger-
man lords rejoice in the title of ‘magnate’ (121, 125), and the
greatest magnate is Siegfried III, Archbishop of Mainz (123).
Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne is commended for both that lay
and religious activity (45) which eventually brought him a political
assassination and a religious canonization. Richard Poore erects a
mighty cathedral outside of Salisbury and beyond royal jurisdiction
(20), while Theodoric of Wied repairs two castles and builds two to
protect his archdiocese of Trier (147). Louis IX brings the Relics of
the Crucifixion to Paris (14); William of Sainte-Mére-Eglise retires
from the bishopric of London after a long and eventful career (8).

1 No. 126. Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, iii, 248, 244; Annals of Oseney, Annales
Monastici, Rolls Series, iv, 74.

Si a

Master Henry of Avranches 45

Some merely reflect the interests of patrons. Frederick II’s fine
intellectual attainments are mentioned (11); the wisdom of the late
Michael Scot, whose translation of the Liber Avicenne de Animalibus
the poet may have copied,’ is extolled. The emperor is urged to
codify Roman Law as Gregory IX has systematized Canon Law
(12). That this pope favored learning is suggested by the poet’s
emphasis upon John Blund’s study at Oxford and Paris, and the
esteem in which he is held in both universities (127). Henry III is
the friend of God and is given One Hundred Proverbs of Justice
(101). Robert Passelewe fails to secure an expected preferment,
but there is consolation in that he need not visit the Papal Curia
whence no rich man returns — rich (77). The young Bishop of Cler-
mont is released from the tutelage of the neighboring Archbishop
of Vienne (108).

Master Henry often lavished unstinted and undeserved flattery
by extravagant comparisons or by punning upon names; both
methods amount to a mannerism and, when present, tend to corrobo-
rate other evidence of his authorship. The first method is illustrated
by a florid passage on Hugh of Lincoln:?

Inter tot flores et gramina nascitur Hugo;
Inter gramina flos, inter flores rosa; nec flos
Simpliciter, sed flos hominum, fios cuius odore;
Cuius siderea specie Lincolnia fragrat,

Et flagrat; fragrat redolens, flagrat coruscans;
Eius enim titulis redolet, signis que coruscat.

An example of the punning type may be taken from the introduction
of the Life of St Francis: *

At tu, sancte pater, bone pastor Gregori none,
Qui pro peccato gregis orans qui gregis horis
Inuigilans tanti mensuram nouam imples.

1 Which a ‘Magister Heinricus Coloniensis’ finished on August 9, 1232, using the
imperial exemplar in the house of Master Volmar, a physician to the emperor (Huillard-
Bréholles, IV, 381; A. M. Bandini, Catalogus Codicum Latinorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Lau-
reatianae, etc., IV, 109). The evidence for identifying Master Henry as of Cologne is given
in Diss., chap. V, note 14 ff.

2 No. 95. Other examples are in nos. 8, 11, 34, 38, 43, 48, 89, 94, 120, 123.

3 No. 89. Other examples are in nos. 4, 36, 42, 46, 49, 89, 94, 120, 146, 148, 149, 152, 155,
For disparagement puns are used in nos. 21, 68, 79, 129 ff.

46 Master Henry of Avranches

Thus etymologizing he plays upon the English Trumpington (94),
the French Passelewe (36, 149) and Des Roches (155), the German
Friedrich (11), Engelbert (46), Siegfried (123), and Heinbach (152).
This indicates that the poet had at least a slight knowledge of
these languages.

As Master Henry matured, he made more and more use of rhyming
verses following a fixed scheme, usually eight syllables to a line
with occasional variation. Most of these are hymns and some are of
considerable beauty: !

Stupet caro, stupet mundo
Stupet spiritus immundus
Quos tres hostes rex Edmundus
Uno Marte domuit

Rex et miles, rex sanctorum
Miles regis angelorum

Sanctus immo flos sanctorum
Sanctitate domuit.

A letter close of November 22, 1244, indicates Henry IIT’s pleasure
in a bit of the poet’s verse which he had ordered for use in an im-
portant ceremony in Westminster Abbey: ?

Mandatum est eidem quod in manu brachii illius, quod rex fieri precepit
in honore Beati Thome apostoli, apponi faciat anulum quendam aureum
competentem, quem fieri faciet fasticium cum pulchro saphiro, et in eodem
anulo inscribatur uersum quendam quem faciet Magister Henricus uersi-
ficator talem continentem sentenciam, “Is bene benedictionem dare debet
qui omnibus benedictionem adquisivit, dum ei dicebatur, beati qui non
uiderunt,” etc. et prouideat omnibus modis quod bracium illud cum tali
anulo promptum sit die Sancti Thome apostoli proximo instanti, ita quod
monachi Westmonasterienses eo die solemniter illud deferre possint in
processione in capis de choro in uenerationem eiusdem apostoli.

The saints’ legends are the most striking of the poet’s efforts,
and that such a poet as Master Henry should give so much time
and attention to hagiography is characteristic of that century when
“never, before or since, has the miracle been so much in vogue.” *

1 No. 25. Other examples are nos. 26, 29, 35, 68, 69, 77, 79, 104, 148, 150, 151, 158.

2 Close Rolls (1242-1247), p. 270.

3 G. H. Gerould, Saints’ Legends (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 53. The poet’s
longer pieces about saints are nos. 1, 2, 6, 16, 17, 19, 22-24, 27, 28, 48, 89, 95.

“aN chars Sa Re

et feet

— & -— «=e be ~

OSG Ss =

Master Henry of Avranches 47

Henry’s legends are usually versifications of older prose works,
though at least three are either inspired by or written to take
advantage of the enthusiasm aroused by the canonization of St
Hugh (95), the translation of St Thomas (1, 2) in 1220, and the
widespread popularity of St Francis following his canonization in
1228 (89); and we may judge the motives behind patrons’ requests
for these legends from Henry Longchamp’s letter to Peter of Blois
in which he asked him to revise the Life of St Guthlac with his ‘honied
eloquence.”! The older saint’s life had become antiquated, involved,
out-of-date, and the abbot desired the best of modern literary
memorials for his patron saint. We can almost hear old abbot
Henry (he served forty-seven years) later say with pride, ‘Ah yes;
Peter of Blois and Master Henry of Avranches wrote these two lives
of St Guthlac for me.’ *

A Chancery item * discloses a payment of ten marks to Master
Henry for the lives of St George and St Edward. The choice of these
two kingly saints might well have been a political move to emphasize
royal sanctity — certainly since the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth
opposition to royalty had been canonized twice in the persons of
Thomas Becket and Hugh of Lincoln.

The Life of St Edward is probably La Estorte de Seint Aedward
le Rei which has been dated 1245 and is dedicated to the queen.‘
Master Henry usually wrote in Latin, but in MS. A there is one
piece of medium length in Anglo-Norman to which he has good
claim ®; it is inherently probable that the poet could versify as easily

1 Ingulph’s Chronicle, etc. trans. for Bohn’s Antiquarian Library by A. T. Riley (London,
1854), p. 224.

2 Chronicon Angliae Petriburgense, ed. J. A. Giles (London, 1845), p. 185: ‘1237. Obiit
dominus Henricus de Longo Campo, abbas Croylandiae, ad cuius petitionem magister Petrus
Blesensis, archidiaconus Bathoniensis tunce eloquentissimus, uitam sancti Guthlaci heroico
stylo et magister Henricus metrico stylo, uenustissime dictauerunt.’

3 Appendiz A, item 2.

4 M.R. James, La Estorie de Seint Aedward le Rei (Oxford, 1920). T. D. Hardy, Descriptive
Catalogue, etc., III (London, 1871), pp. 25, 26.

5 No. 15, Les IX Joies Nostre Dame occupies fol. 45r—46v following no. 14, Louis IX and
the Translation of the Relics of the Crucifixion to Paris. No. 15 appears anonymously in eight
MSS of which MS. A is probably the earliest. The poem’s appearance so early (before 1259)
is the chief reason for doubting the authorship of Rutebeuf, to whom it has been attributed
on account of its presence in two MSS (B. N. MS. Fr. 837 and MS. Fr. 24432) containing
collections of poems of which Rutebeuf wrote many but hardly a majority. See A. Kressner,

48 Master Henry of Avranches

in his native tongue as in Latin. Master Henry’s claim as author
of this piece opens the question of his possible authorship of other
legends of the same period. On one manuscript of the Vie de Saint-
Auban appears the following note: !

Mittatis si placet ad dominam comitissam Harundel, Isabellam ut
mittat uobis librum de Sancto Thoma Martyre et de (Sancto Ae)dwardo
quem transtuli et protraxi ( )terit domina comitissa Harun( ) usque
at Pentecostem.

Thus the author of the piece on St Edward was also the author of
the piece on St Thomas, and since the note appears on a romance
the others were probably romances. Paul Meyer has detected the
stylistic resemblance between the romances of St Edward and St
Thomas and their similarity to a third romance, Guy of Warwick.
The writer of the above note upon the Vie de Saint-Auban may
possibly be its author. The illuminations in the MSS of the roman-
ces of St Thomas, St Auban, and St Edmund are very similar and
may have been done by Matthew Paris, as Walsingham stated.*
If Master Henry is responsible for any of these we have more evi-
dence of his connection with the great chronicler.

The saints’ legends seem to have circulated among the ladies.‘
St Edward is dedicated to the queen, and Her Majesty also borrowed
from the Master of the Templars in England, R. de Sanford, a book
‘in quo continetur Gesta Antiochie et Regum.’* As is clear from the
note on the Vie de Saint-Auban, Isabel, Countess of Arundel, was
interested in the book about St Thomas and St Edward, and to her
was dedicated a Life of St Edmund Rich.® A second note in the MS.

Rustebeuf’s Gedichte (Wolfenbiittel, 1885), pp. 201-206: P. Meyer, in Romania, XIII (1884),
512. The other MSS are B. N. MSS Fr. 1635, Fr. 12786, and Lat. 16537; Arsénal, MSS 8142
and 5202; St Geneviéve, MS. 1137; and Phillips MS. 8336.

1 Robert Atkinson, Vie de Saint Auban (London, 1876), p. ix.

2 Fragments d’une Vie de Saint-Thomas de Cantorbéry (Paris, 1885), p. xxxv.

3 Atkinson, op. cit., p. v.

4 For the influence of women upon the development of poetry, cf. Gerould, op. cit., p. 136,
and W. Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures in the Study of Mediaeval and Modern History (Oxford,
1900), p. 178.

5 Close Rolls (1247-1251), p. 283.

6 Gerould, Saints’ Legends, p. 136; cf. bibliographies on pp. 358, 359.

Master Henry of Avranches 49

of the Vie de Saint-Auban mentions a book of the Countess of
Winchester.!

We are naturally interested in the kinds of rewards which Master
Henry desired and received for his extensive versification. That he
welcomed either temporal or spiritual reward is stated in a group of
lines of which he thought well enough to use in two poems (9 and 47):

Saluo Sanctorum titulo, qui talia tanto
Cui, tali, tanto potuit patrare Creator?
Et, si tanta dedit tali uel talia tanto
Donum mundanum uel donum spirituale
Maius uel melius, maiore uel meliori
Largiri potuit semper, sed noluit umquam.

Thus Master Henry’s desires for largess is clear but lacks definition
in detail. This is likewise true of certain indications of the poet’s
remuneration. His probable indebtedness to monasteries for hos-
pitality has been mentioned. A second poem to a patron suggests
a gift for the first poem of sufficient value to make another effort
worth while. The four long saints’ lives written by request presume
rewards, probably of liberal proportions. These rather unsatis-
factory hints are, however, supplemented by much more definite
evidence.

If the poet and the canon of Avranches who appear simultane-
ously at the Papal Curia in April, 1234, are identical, we may easily
believe that the pope had paid the poet well for the Life of St Francis
(89); both his clerkship at Rome and canonry at Avranches were
probably papal gifts.?, By 1238 Master Henry held a castle in Ger-
many * and the deanery of St Servatius at Maastricht, both probably

! Atkinson, op. cit., p. xi.

2 Auvray, no. 1881, of April 12, says that Henry, clerk of St Mary in Trastevere and
canon of Avranches, had come to Rome seeking a prebend of higher value at Avranches.
However, since he had been convicted of ‘malicious writings’ against the bishop of Avran-
ches, he must forego his request and be suspended from his benefice until the bishop should
forgive him. No. 108 features the release of Hugh de la Tour from tutelage, which took
place on April 13 (Auvray, no. 1883). No. 136 (written in France) mentions the poet’s pre-
bend, which seems from a reference in no. 141 to have been at Avranches.

3 Nos. 114, 116, 117 tell of his loss of this castle guod Teutonice Mons Fortis dicitur —
presumably named ‘Starkenberg’ but unidentified.

50 Master Henry of Avranches

as gifts of the emperor and the latter with permission of the pope.!
Of the envoys of Otto IV in 1214 Master Henry received the largest
gift from King John.*

By far the most valuable information both as to the actual re-
wards of Master Henry and to his later life (1243-1260) — from
which few poems have survived — is furnished by the records of gifts,
salary payments and wine grants in the English rolls. Since these
are quite full and illustrate both the amount and method of pay-
ment, they constitute a unique and valuable source of knowledge
of the income of a thirteenth-century man of letters.’

For the years 1243-1245 only two items remain but these are of
great interest. The first authorizes the payment of a half-year’s
salary to the poet from October 20, 1243 to April 5, 1244 at the rate
of twenty shillings a month. On March 7, 1245, he was granted the
ten marks for the lives of St George and St Edward already men-
tioned.‘ After an absence of several years he suddenly reappears
on the rolls in the summer of 1251 with permission to collect the
arrears of his salary (100 shillings) from the Exchequer even if it be
closed.® Since the records show no continuation of salary beyond
1244 and mention no salary at all for several years after 1251, the
100 shillings was probably five months’ salary due him in 1244 but
which absence from England may have prevented him from col-
lecting.

1 In no. 112 the poet describes himself as decanus Tratectensis which may be either Utrecht
or Maastricht, but the other details point to the trouble in the diocese of Liége in which
Maastricht lies (J. P. Kirsch, ‘Das Liitticher Schisma von Jahre 1238,’ Rémische Quartal-
schrift, 111, 1889, 176 ff.). In 1237 a Henry was dean of Maastricht (Compte-Rendu des
Séances de la Commission Royale d’ Histoire, CTX, 1867, 43). Another document of 1237 has a
Magister Henricus decanus Traiectensis, but editors differ upon the city designated, Ch. Piot
for Utrecht (Chartulaire de l’ Abbaye de Saint Trond, I (Brussels, 1870], 90) and A. Wauters
for Maastricht (Table Chronologique des Chartes et Diplimes Imprimés, IV (Brussels, 1874],
265). St Servatius was in very close relation with the emperor. See Béhmer-Ficker, nos. 811,
1033, 1100, 1475, 1960, 2014, 2110, 3877, 3905, 4193, 4194, 5448, 5450, 10870, 14771, especially
nos. 1441 and 4340. On April 15, 1236, Gregory IX allowed the decanus Traiectensis to hold
several benefices (Auvray, no. 3104).

2 Close Rolls (1204-1224), p. 177b.

* Baron de Pirch’s summary of these items, although inadequate and very inaccurate,
might have aroused interest in the poet earlier, had it not been so little known, appearing in
the Bulletin Annuel: Mémoires de la Soc. d’ Archéol. d’ Avranches (1846), pp. 32-38.

4 Appendiz A, item 2. 5 Item 4.

Master Henry of Avranches 51

The king’s munificence, still purely voluntary, seems to have
been fixed during the years 1251-1253 on the basis of earlier pre-
cedents. The payment of the arrears of 100 shillings may have been
the precedent for payments of similar size in the next year.' Gifts of
10 pounds appear twice,’ and the total for each year is approximately
twenty shillings a month — the 1243-1244 rate. Some evidence of
the continuance of these payments appears in January, 1256, in a
gift of 60 shillings for expenses,’ probably for three months, and
slightly over a month later in another of 25 shillings.‘ With an
odd item of 11 shillings * these gifts cease altogether three months
later.

The summer of 1251 also saw the beginning of a form of gift
which came to be peculiarly associated with the poets laureate, the
wine grant. A letter close of August 2, stipulates that to Magistro
Henrico uersificatori shall go duo dolia uini meri et opiimi.6 On August
30, the king commands that, besides the two dolia already granted
to the poet, he shall received unum bonum dolium et peroptimum.’
If the adjectives express the poet’s preference for good wine, they
stand in marked contrast to his dislike for beer displayed in the lines
quoted by Camden and Du Cange:*

Nescio quid Stygiae monstrum conforme paludi,
Ceruisiam plerique uocant; nil spissius illa,

Dum bibitur; nil clarius est, dum mingitur; unde
Constat quod multas feces in uentre relinquit.

The publication of the letters close of 1251-1270 will probably reveal
other grants until May 20, 1257, the date of the letter patent which
grants to Master Henry a tun of vintage and a tun de recko yearly
for life.°

The custom of giving the poet about 20 shillings a month or eight-
pence a day was followed only occasionally if at all after 1253: for this
were substituted two grants of three-pence a day for life. On Feb-

1 Items 6, 7. 2 Items 3 and 5. 3 Item 10.

* Item 11. 5 Item 12.

® Close Rolls (1247-1251), p. 483. 7 Ibid, p. 496.

* Camden, Britannia (1587), p. 361: Du Cange, Glossarium ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae
Latinitatis in all editions under ‘cerevisia.’

* Patent Rolls (1247-1258), p. 555.

52 Master Henry of Avranches

ruary 10, 1255, the king ordered the treasurer and chamberlains to
disburse to Master Henry vwerstficatori the daily three-pence which
were formerly enjoyed by John de Corleye.! This was granted
presumably for his ability and service as a poet, but the second
grant, made to ‘our clerk, Master Henry of Avranches,’ suggests
that the poet became one of the court chaplains since three-pence
a day was their wage.? The Issue Rolls record the payment of six-
pence daily from 1256 until Easter, 1260. The reckonings were
made at Easter and Michaelmas. Since the poet seems to have
received his full salary for the Michaelmas terms, 1259, he was alive
at Easter, 1260; he probably passed away during the following
half-year. The Tellers’ Rolls— rough memoranda of disbursements
from the lower Exchequer — indicate that the poet often received
his payment in small and irregular sums.’ Indeed items of two and
three shillings suggest that he might collect the amount due him at
intervals as short as four or six days.‘ However, neither permanent
stipend nor wine-grant seems as valuable as its earlier counterpart
in gifts.

Wine-grants and a definite salary for consoling, amusing, and
defending the king in verse caused Master Henry’s position at the
English court to approximate that of the poets laureate. As Warton
has noticed, Master Henry was even subjected to abuse by a rival
as many laureates were.> Moreover, Michael of Cornwall dubbed
his enemy archipoeta, beginning his poem:

Archipoeta uide quod non sit cura tibi de
Non reprehendis in me...

Farther on he says:

Pendo poeta prius te diximus archipoetam
Quem per posterius uix dicimus esse poetam
Immo poeticulum.®

1 Item 9. 2 Item 13.

3 So Miss Mabel M. Mills (Romaldkirk, Darlington, England) who transcribed the items
in Appendiz A informs me.

* Item 15.

5 Thomas Wharton, History of English Poetry (London, 1774), I, 47. See also E. K.
Broadus, The Laureateship (Oxford, 1921), p. 9.

6 MS. MA, fol. 272v, 1.

Master Henry of Avranches 53

No real basis exists for considering him a fully recognized poet
laureate — in the records he appears only as the ‘versifier,’ not
even as the king’s versifier. Archipoeta was probably the equivalent
of the wersificator magnus which appears in one MS.’ Both were
probably well-known designations for our poet.

Master Henry’s career emphasizes the international and clerical
character of Mediaeval Latin civilization. Although his poetry is
seldom scholarly, he composed in Latin in four countries, found
his audiences largely among churchmen, experienced the hospitality
held one or more ecclesiastical preferments. Writing in Latin he
appealed to few nobles below emperor or king; his superiority over
that of the French jongleur is evident. Even French, widely current
as it was, admitted only to England, parts of Italy, and the Levant;
Latin was universal. Master Henry might hold a clerkship at Rome,
a canonry at Avranches, and at the same time serve as Dean of
Maastricht or write for Henry III. Few such sinecures were open
to the jongleur who usually sang first and received his reward later.

The organization and universality of the Church explains how
Master Henry could travel so easily from country to country; this
does not necessarily explain why he did so. But as a court poet he
must move about; for all courts were ambulatory. Even the pope
left Rome as often as his well-being was endangered by malaria or
rebellion. Michael of Cornwall says of our poet:?

Per terras uarias uelud explorando poeta
Erras, et uarias tibi uestes uerme repletas.

But Master Henry could avoid travel and its discomforts only by
giving up his profession; for Master Henry must to seek out his
readers and hearers. The slow and limited circulation of manuscripts
made the establishment of personal contacts the one practical
method of self-advertizing.

A group of clever lines, a bit of skillful flattery or brilliant imagery
was worth using on more than one patron. The same six lines ex-
pressing the poet’s interest in spiritual as well as temporal rewards
were presented to Eustace Falconberg (47) and to Stephen Langton

1 MS. Digby 172, fol. 123r, for no. 102. 2 MS. MA, fol. 272v.

54 Master Henry of Avranches

(9). Langton (9) as well as Richard Marsh (34), heard the poet’s
plaint, ‘inangulor apud Anglos.’ * Plus uolo quam ualeo’ appears in
the introductions of the lives of St Edmund (24) and St Hugh (95);
in the latter this phrase is followed by

mea parua scientia tanto
Materie non sufficeret superaddere formas

which turns up later in the Feast of All Saints (43), differing only
in the tense of the verb. The alliteration of clarus and clerus occurs
in at least eight poems.’ The conclusions of eleven pieces, mostly
saints’ legends, present a definite sequence of development.? SS
Guthlac (19), Birin (23), Oswald (48), and Francis (89) are com-
pared to Alexander the world conqueror. The descriptions of the
building operations of Richard Poore (20) and of Theoderic of Wied
(147) have many details in common. The lines to Engelbert (46)

Barbarus ‘v’ variat in ‘b.’ Nos, ergo, Latini

Hanc converso ‘b’ variemus in ‘v’

Sic Engebiertus . . .

are repeated for Robert (4) with appropriate variations. Punning
upon names was, we have seen, one of his favorite devices.

Flattery by favorable comparison is found, we saw, in the Life of
St Hugh (95) of 1220; this device is again used in 1221, first to the
retiring bishop of London (8), then to his successor (38), and
about 1226 to the Abbot of Peterborough (48). In the next decade
he uses it with reference to St Francis (89), to Frederick IT (11),
and finally to Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz (123). Contemporaries
would have regarded the order of presentation in both decades as of
descending importance. The poet may have added to the inherent

flattery of the lines the distinction that it had already pleased a §

superior.
The course of time would exhaust Master Henry’s repertory and

the available supply of patrons; it would become advisable to try |

another court. The several long saints’ legends of 1217-1227 glutted
the English market; but later we find him writing the Life of St

1 Nos. 8, 35, 41, 46, 47, 95, 118, 126.
2 Nos. 27, 43, 22, 103, 95, 19, 24, 48, 28, 89, 14.

Master Henry of Avranches 55

Francis (89) in Italy and the long poem upon SS Crispin and Crisp-
inian apparently in France (28). On the whole, England seems to
have borne with him longest.

To the inducements to travel offered by the conditions of patron-
age must be added Master Henry’s restless disposition. At times he
expressed discontent with England (9, 34), Germany (10, 112) and
Italy (10), and never remained long in France. His contentious
disposition was doubtless responsible for many of the difficulties

which made emigration attractive (9):
O si

Anglia Theutonie me saltem redderet album.

There are still to be explained the poet’s apparently voluntary
absences from England after 1243 when he enjoyed many gifts and a
comfortable salary. When other explanations are exhausted there
remains the almost irresistible wanderlust of the international poet.
As a young man he described his life as that of an exile wandering
in foreign lands. Over thirty years later Michael of Cornwall
characterized the career of his rival in lines which indicate that the
aging poet, Master Henry of Avranches, still answered to the de-
scription of his youth: ?

Immo per terras uagus erras, set quot oberras,
Narrans res miras, deliras, nec tibi liras.

APPENDIX A

Item 1. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 20 m 12. 28 Henry ITI (1243-1244).
(In margin) “Liberate pro Magistro Henrico versificatore et fratre Hamone
de Bello loco.” (In text) “Rex eisdem (i. e., Thesaurario et Camerariis)
salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostro Edwardo de Westmonasterio VI Libr’
ad acquietand’ expensas Magistri Henrici versificatoris a xx die Octobr’ anno
etc. xxvii usque ad quintam diem Aprilis anno etc. xxviii qui capit per mensem
zz sol quamdiu steterit in servicio nostro per preceptum nostrum. Liberate
etc. fratri Hamone de Bello loco xxv 3 ad acquietandam unam robam ad opus

’ 9°

suum de dono nostro. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium zrzx die Marc’.

1 In the quotation at the beginning of this article.
2 MS. MA, fol. 274v.

56 Master Henry of Avranches

Item 2. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 21 m 10. 29 Henry III (1244-1245).
(In margin) “ Pro Magistro Henrico versificatore.” (In text) “Rex thesaurario
etc. salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostro Magistro Henrico versificatori x
pro servicio suo quod nobis impendit dictando vitas beatorum Edwardi et

> 99

Georgii. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium vii die Marc’.

Item 3. Pipe Roll 95 m 7 (under expenses of Wardrobe). Compiled
35 Henry III for years 29-36 Henry III, and year is uncertain. “Et
Magistro Henrico versificator’ x li.”” Quoted by Madox, The History and
Antiquities of the Exchequer (London, 1769), IT, 202.

Item 4. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 27 m6. 35 Henry IIT (1250-1251).
(In margin) “lib’ pro Henrico versificatore.” (In text) “Rex eisdem (i. e.,
Thesaurario et Camerariis) salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostro dilecto nobis
Magistro Henrico versificatori C sot qui et debentur de arrerag’ stipendiorum
suorum. Et hoc sine dilacione et difficultate faciatis licet scaccarium sit
clausum. Teste ut supra per ipsum Regem.” (Apparently at Woodstock
July 14.) Quoted by Madox, op. cit., I, 391.

Irem 5. Chancellor’s Roll 36 m 20. Account for 36 Henry III (1251-
1252). (In same place as entry in Pipe Roll 95 and among the same type
of entries.) “Et Magistro Henrico versificatori x ti.”

Irem 6. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 28 m 8. 36 Henry III (1251-1252).

(In margin) “Pro Magistro Henrico Abricens.” (In text) “‘ Rex vicecomitibus
Lond’ salutem. Precipimus vobis quod Magistro Henrici Abricensi habere
faciatis C sot ad expensas suas de dono nostro. Et computabantur. Teste ut
supra per Regem. Teste Rex apud Windes’ xitii die Jun’.”

Irem 7. Pipe Roll 96 (under Farm of London and Middlesex). 36
Henry III (1251-1252). “Et Magistro Henrico de Abriné C sot de dono
Regis per breve Regis.” (A single casual payment.)

Irem 8. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 29 m2. 37 Henry III (1252-1253).
(In margin) “pro Magistro Henrico Albricens’.” (In text) “Rex eisdem
(t.e., Thesaurario et Camerariis) salutem. Liberate de Thesauro nostro
Magistro Henrico Albricenci x marcas de dono nostro. Teste ut supra (i. e.,
Rege apud Winton’ xxwi die Jun’).”

Item 9. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 31 m11. 39 Henry III (1254-1255).
(In margin) “Liberate pro Henrico versificatore.” (In text) “Rex Thesaurario
et Camerariis suis salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostro Magistro Henrico
versificatort singulis diebus quamdiu vixerit tres denarios ad sustentacionem
suam quos concesseramus Johanni de Corleye et a solucione inde facienda
eidem Johanni de cetero desistatis et arreragia si que debentur dicto Johanni,
prefato Magistro habere faciatis. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium x die

Febr’.”’

Master Henry of Avranches 57

Irem 10. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 32m15. 40 Henry III (1255-
1256). (In margin) “Pro Magistro Henrico de Averench’.”’ (In text) “Rex
Thesaurario et Camerartis salutem. Liberate de thesauro nostro Magistro
Henrico de Averenches sexaginta solidos ad exrpensas suas de dono nostro,
Teste ut supra (i. e., Rege apud Windes xx die Jan.’)”

Irem 11. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 32m13. 40 Henry III (1255-
1256). (In margin) “Pro Henrico de Averens’.” (In text) “Rex eisdem
(i.e., Thesaurario et Camerariis) salutem. Liberate de Thesauro nostro
Henrico de Averens’ xxv sot ad expensas suas de dono nostro. Teste ut supra
(i. e., Rege apud Sanctum Albanum xxv die Febr’.)”

Item 12. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 32m9. 40 Henry III (1255-
1256). (In margin) “Pro Magistro Henrico versificat’.” (In text) “Rex
Thesaurario et Camerariis suis salutem. Liberate de Thesauro nostro Magistro
Henrico versificatori xi* s’ de dono nostro ffucta prius solucione Th’ de Sab’
Com’ quam vobis iniunximus. Teste ut supra (i. e., Rege apud Windes’ xxi
die Mait.)”

Item 13. Liberate (Chancery) Roll 32m3. 40 Henry III (1255-
1256). (In margin) “Pro Magistro Henrico de Averench’.”’ (In text) “Rex
Thesaurario et Camerariis suis salutem. Liberate de cetero de Thesauro nostro
dilecto clerico nostro Magistro Henrico de Averenches preter illos tres denarios
quos et prius concessimus singulis diebus quam dum vizerit alios tres denarios
ad sustentacionem suam. Ita quod habebit singulis diebus quam diu vizxerit
sex denarios. In cuius, etc. Teste ut supra (i. e., Rege apud Westmonasterium
ziti die Septembr’) et istud liberate est patens.”

Item 14. Issue Roll 11. 41 Henry II. Michaelmas Term from
Michaelmas 1256 to Easter 1257. Appears to be issued in Medio Tempore
and is later than Wednesday next before Feast of St Gregory.

“Magistro Henrico versificatori qui capit inde vi d’, wit lib’r’. xv 8’. vi
den’ per idem tempus.”

Item 15. Issue Roll 12. Apparently a Tellers Roll. Michaelmas 1256-
Easter 1257. “ Magistro Henrico de Abrincis ti s’. Item als’. Itemxs’. Item
vis’. Item xvii (may be xviii) s’. Item vi s’, viii d’.” (All these entries
struck through with a single line.) (Below in same column) “Magistro
H versificatore i m? un’ ania aur’ Itemvs’. (These items not struck through

possibly were not paid out.)

Item 16. Issue Roll 13. Easter 1257-Michaelmas 1257. “Magistro
Henrico de Abrinces versificatori qui capit indie (sic) vi d’, iii” ki vii s’ per
idem tempus.”

58 Master Henry of Avranches
Item 17. Issue Roll 14. Tellers Roll probably. Easter 1257—Michael-

mas 1257. “ Magistro Henrico Averenches xiii” s’ ix d’. Item zxav 8°.”
(Both struck through.) (Below in same column) “Magistro Henrico versifi-

catori ii s’ x d’ ob’.”” (Not struck through.)

Ivem 18. Issue Rolls 15 A and B which are duplicates. Michaelmas
1257-Easter 1258. ‘‘ Magistro Henrico versificatori qui capit in die vi d’,
iii Hi viii s’.”” (As in A.) B adds “per idem tempus.”

Irem 19. Issue Roll 16. Michaelmas 1257— Easter 1258. “ Magistro
Henrico le versifiur xii s’ a crastino Sancti Michaelis usque ad diem Sancti
Romani per (mutilated here) utraque die comput’. Item eidem xx 8’ per
Thesaurario die Sancti Thome Apostoli.” (At end of column and struck
through.) “Magistro Henrico le versifiur vii s’ de prestitis super vadis.”

Item 20. Issue Roll 16 dorse. Michaelmas 1257—Easter 1258. “‘Magis-
tro Henrico le versifiur xz 8’. Item zxs’. Item vis’. Item xii d’.”

Item 21. Issue Roll 17 Am2. Easter-Michaelmas 1258. “Magistro
Henrico versificatori qui capit in die vi d’ wii” bi iit 8° vi d’ per idem tempus.”

Irem 22. Issue Roll 17 B m1. Michaelmas 1258—Easter 1259. “‘ Magis-
tro Henrico versificatori qui capit in die vi d’ xvii s’ scilicet a crastino Sancti
Michaelis usque ad diem animarum per xrxxiiii” dies utroque die comp’ per
breve patens.””

Irem 23. Issue Roll 18. Michaelmas 1259—Easter 1260. “Magistro
Henrico versificator’ qui capit in die vi den’ wii” ti xiti sot vi den’ per idem
tempus.”

APPENDIX B

CATALOGUE OF THE POEMS OF MASTER HENRY OF AVRANCHES

PuBLISHED Works

The list of the published poems given here is referred to in the subse-
quent list by letters in parentheses. (a) W. Camden, Remaines of a Greater
Worke (London, 1605) gives excerpts from no. 4 on p. 143; no. 7, Poetry,
p. 41; no. 34, Poetry, p. 17; no. 37, p. 144; no. 38, p. 143; no. 49, p. 144;
no. 69, Poetry, p. 19; no. 88, Poetry, p. 22. (b) Monatschrift fiir die Ge-
schichte Westdeutschlands, IV (1878), 336-344: nos. 9, 71, 79, 90, 91, 92,
93. (c) Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, XVIII (1878), 484-492:
nos. 10, 11, 12. (d) G. G. Leibnitz, Secriptores Brunsvicensia Illustrantium
(Hannover, 1710), II, 525-532: no. 21 from MS. Cotton Vitell. D XVI.
(e) G. La Farina, Rischiarazioni e Documenti sopra Nove Studi Storici del
Secolo XIII (Bastia, 1857), II, dcliii: no. 21 reprinted from (d). (f)

-— i Ue ae ehUCULee CO

's-

Master Henry of Avranches 59

Francis Hervey, Corolla Sancti Eadmundi (London, 1907), pp. 200-223:
nos. 24, 25, 26. (g) Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, XL, 172, no. 26; XL,
114, no. 29, p. 283, no. 75; XX, 140, no. 64 (cf. XLVIII, 269); XX, 144 f.,
no. 102; for the many versions of no. 70 cf. XV, 96, 97, XX XI, 180, 197,
XLII, 83. (h) L. Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, III (Paris, 1894), 468-
474: no. 31. (j) H. Walther, Das Streitgedicht in der Lateinischen Literatur
des Mittelalters (Miinchen, 1920), pp. 248-253: no. 41. (k) A. Cristofani,
Il pit Antico Poema della Vita di S. Francesco d’ Assisi (Prati, 1882):
no. 89 from MS. Assisi 338 (MS. A 182). (1) Miscellanea Francescana, V
(1890), 77 ff.: no. 89 from MS. Versailles (8). (m) Analecta Bollandiana,
XLIII (1925), 96 ff.: no. 89 from MS. A. (n) Matthew Paris, Chronica
Maiora, VI, 62: no. 94. (p) J. F. Dimock, Metrical Life of St Hugh, Bishop
of Lincoln (Lincoln, 1860): no. 95. (q) Du Cange, under “‘cerevisia’”’:
no. 96. (r) Anthony Wood, Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxo-
niensis (Oxford, 1674): no. 127, I, 27; no. 152, I, 86; no. 150, II, 29;
no. 155, I, 87; all excerpts.

Manuscripts!

MS. A (Cambridge University Library, MS. Dd. zi. 78) was written at
St Albans sometime between 1243 (date of no. 62) and 1259, the date of
the death of its owner, Matthew Paris. (Diss., chap. I, notes 1-27). The
name Henry appears in nos. 11 and 33; nos. 1, 14, 35, 41, 59-60, and 89
are attributed to him by contemporary hands in this MS.; and nos. 19,
48, 89, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 102 by other reliable sources. (Diss.,
chap. III). This article has described many of the distinguishing char-
acteristics of his poetry which corroborate the poet’s claim to authorship
of the poems in this MS. The attribution of poems to “William of
Ramsey” is based solely upon a mistaken statement of John Leland (Diss.,
Appendix). No. 88 is apparently a later addition of which Philippe de
Gréve is probably the author (Diss., chap. IV, notes 98-102). The following
list supplements that of A Catalogue of the MSS preserved in the Library
of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1856), I, 469-476, whose
numeration is given in brackets.

MS. A, part 1, fol. 1-57. 1, [1]. 2, [2]. 3, Fragment of Grammar,
““Nominis omnis in o sexum signantis utrumque,” fol. 29r. 4, To Robert,
“Tu bene Robertus, quasi robur thus, bene robur,”’ fol. 29v (a). 5, Frag-
ment of Grammor, “Ista duo uerba cio, cis, et cieo es,” fol. 2%v. 6, [3],
7, [4], (a). 8, [5]. 9, [6], (b). 10, 11, 12; [7], [8], [9]; (c). 13, [10], 14, [11].
15, [12]. 16, [13]. 17, [14].

1 The Harvard College Library possesses photographs of MS. A, fol. 1-200; MS. D, fol.
151-184; MS. MA, fol. 269-275; and MS. Digby 172, fol. 84v-85r, 123.

60 Master Henry of Avranches

MS. A, part 2, fol. 58-153. 18, [15]. 19, 20, 21 (d, e), 22, 23, 24 (f);
[16]-[21], also were in MS. Cotton Vitell. D XIV now lost: no. 20 is in MS.
D, fol. 157r-160r; no. 23 is in MS. Bodley 40, fol. 43v-52v. 25, Hymn to
St Edmund, “Stupet caro, stupet mundo,” fol. 137r and fol. 193v (f).
26, Hymn to St Edmund, “ Profitendo fidem solam,” fol. 137r and fol. 194r
(f, g). 27, [22]. 28, [23]. 29, [24], Hymn to St Mary, “Anna partu soluitur,”
fol. 148v: also in MS. Rawlinson C 510, fol. 26, (g). 30, Fragment, “Tutus
erit quicunque negat nisi fama laboret,”’ fol. 149r. 31, [25], (h). 32, [26].

MS. A, part 3, fol. 154-199. 33, Henry and Peter at the Papal Curia,
“In mota lite michi det procedere rite,” fol. 154r. 34, To Richard Marsh,
Bishop of Durham, “Omnis adulator mihi displicet. At tamen ipse,” fol.
154v, (a). 35, [28]. 36, To Robert Passelewe, “Unica tres titulos ne tollat
littera, sicut,” fol. 165r. 37, To King John, “‘Nomen habes non inmerito
diuina, Johannes,” fol. 165v, (a). 38, [29], (a). 39, To Ralph Neville,
Bishop of Chichester, ““Successu Nova Villa sui iuvenescit alumni,” fol.
166r. 40, To Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, ““O qui flos es Anglicorum,”
fol. 166r. 41, [30], (j). 42, [31]. 43, [32]. 44, To Stephen Langton, Archbishop
of Canterbury, “Stephane, te sublimat sic honor te sanctificans,” fol. 171r.
45, To Engelbert of Burg, Archbishop of Cologne, “‘Engelberte, uiri gladio
fungentis utroque,” fol. 172r. 46, To Engelbert of Burg, Archbishop of
Cologne, “Barbarus ‘v’ variat in ‘b.’ Nos, ergo, Latini,” fol. 173v. 47, To
Eustace Falconberg, Bishop of London, “‘Eustachio bona scit stacio qui
firma columna,” fol. 174r. 48, [33], also in MS Bodley 40, fol. 57v—69r.
49, To Pandulph, Bishop of Norwich, “Te totum dulcor perfundit, et inde
notaris,”’ fol. 187r, (a). 50-61, fragments of no importance, fol. 187r—v. 62,
[34]. 63, Fragment, “Carbones, charbuns, nos, nus, conburimus, arduns,”
fol. 188r. 64, To St Mary, “In te concipitur,” fol. 188v, (g). 65, Fragment,
“‘Prudens uates et ornate,” fol. 189r. 66, Fragment, “Cum sumus imbuti,
non est equaliter uti,” fol. 189r. 67, Fragment, “Roborare dat id es sedet
ad ora rubor,” fol. 189r. 68, To Simon of Sully, Archbishop of Bourges,
“‘Aduocatus iustitie,” fol. 189v. 69, [35], (a). 70, The Joys of the Virgin,
“‘Gaude uirgo, mater Christi,” fol. 190v, (g). 71, [86], (b). 72, [87]. 73,
[38]. 74, Fragment of Grammar, “Omnibus in rebus sunt tantum quinque
notanda,” fol. 1938r. 75, To Salome, “Nil pretendat mundo triste,” fol.
193v, (g). 76, A Kind of Apocalypse, “Fratris utrumque supplente,” fol.
194r. 77, To Robert Passelewe, “‘Summus conscendens apicem,” fol. 194r.
78, (39). 78, [40]. 79, [41], (b). 80, Fragment of French, “Tut li mund doit
mener, etc.” fol. 196r. 81-87, fragments of no importance, fol. 199r.
88, [42], (a).

MS. A, part 4, fol. 200-238. 89, [43], see (k,1, m) for MSS. 90, Against
Lambekinus, “Cur, Lambekine, longo tegis ulcera crine?” fol. 238, (b).

SS Oe ot oe te CO Oe A

O Th tn —~

ama ie

vs we O oF se

Master Henry of Avranches 61

91, Against Lambertus, “Non tibi, Lamberte, parcam. Si carmina per te,
fol. 238, (b). 92, To St Albans, “Do grates, Albane, tibi, qui Pantaleonis,”’
fol. 238, (b). 93, Debate between Conradulus and an Englishman, “‘Non
ualet audire mala plus Conradulus ire,” fol. 238, (b).

MS. Cotton, Nero D I, fol. 145 contains no. 94, To William of Trumping-
ton, Abbot of St Albans, “‘Ostendam sermone breui quis et unde sit abbas,”
(n). 95, The Life of St Hugh, “Arma uirumque cano, quo iudice, nec caro
cara,” British Museum, Royal MS, 13 1, iv, fol. 9-23; MS Laud 515,
fol. 117-140, (p). 96, Beer, ““Nescio quod Stygie monstrum conforme
palude,” C. U. L. MS Ll. 1. 15, fol. 23, (q). 97, Altercatio inter Magistrum
Henricum de Albrincis et Leonium Theutonicum, see p. 41, note 2.
98, Certamen inter regem Johannem et barones, see Tanner, Bibliotheca
Britannico-Hibernica, p. 219. 99, Epitaph of William Marshall, reference
to this on flyleaf of MS A and also in Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora,
iii, p. 43. 99A, De quodam loco ubi proposuit studere, and 99B, Quedam
sequertia de Beata Virgine, also mentioned on flyleaf of MS. A. 101, 100
Proverbs of Justice, “‘Pax Henrico, Dei amico,” MS. Digby 172, fol. 84v.
102, Hymn to the Virgin, “Aue, maris stella, mellis stilla,” MS. Digby 172,
fol. 123v; for other MSS see (g). 103, Metrical Treatise on Grammar,
“Comoda gramatice” (MS. mutilated), MS. Rawlinson G 50, all 39 folios.

MS. D (MS. Cotton Vesp. D V), fol. 151-185, a 13th-century MS.
The author of no. 112 was Dean of Maastricht in 1238 and the name
Henry appears in no. 123. The writer of no. 155 mentions his De Gestis
S. Birini (23). The patrons Peter des Roches, Gregory IX, Simon of
Sully, Milo of Nanteuil, and Robert Passelewe, the Bourges-Bordeaux
controversy, the refusal of hospitality to wandering clerks in Germany,
and even an entire poem (no. 20) reappear from MS. A. This, together
with numerous similarities of style and subject, makes clear that Master
Henry is their author rather than his enemy, Michael of Cornwall, to
whom a modern hand has attributed this group of poems.

MS. D. 104, Stephen and Saul, “Solus et sapientia,” fol. 151r. 105,
The City, “Intrauit clausam quicumque paludibus urbem,” fol. 151r.
106, To Aldrich (Bishop of Trent?), “Qui sic Aldrice propellere te volver-
unt,” fol. 15lv. 107, Feast of St Nicholas, “Festa subalternant Nicholaos;
ille uocauit,” fol. 151v. 108, To Hugh de la Tour, Bishop of Clermont,
“Roma tuum nomen exaltat, episcope Clari,” fol. 152r. 109, To a Judge,
“Sume librum iuris, doctor verbi quod relator,” fol. 152v. 110, To Berthold,
““Multos tu multus facis hic, Bertholdi, tumultus,” fol. 152v. 111, To
Nicholas of Piacenza, Bishop of Spoleto and Patriarch-elect of Constantinople,
“Te, Nicholae, decus quod promovet, amovet et qui,” fol. 153r. 112,
To Gregory IX upon the Poet’s Difficulties at Maastricht, “Sancte Pater,

62 Master Henry of Avranches

si queque tuos iniuria sensus,” fol. 153r. 113, To Nicholas of Piacenza
(see no. 111), “Pontificem placidum genuit Placentia. Qui dum,” fol.
154r. 114, To Gregory IX upon the Poet’s Difficulties in Germany,” Sancte
Pater, cuius regis excellentia mundum,” fol. 154r. 115, To a Judge, “‘Ordinis,
ut video, sacri reverende professor,” fol. 154v. 116 (same as no. 114),
“Sancte Pater, cause brevis est tenor. Ambo potentes,” fol. 154r. 117,
(same as no. 114), “Stat sublime secus et inexpugnabile castrum,” fol.
155r. 118, To Siegfried III of Eppenstein, Archbishop of Mayence, “‘Aptatos
Sifride, diu bene veneris omnes,” fol. 156v. 119 (to the same), “Neve
susurronum predictis curia vellet,” fol. 156v. 120 (to the same), “Hec
sunt que de te vulgaris opinio ponit,” fol. 157r. 121, To Egbert, “Vir
dilecte Deo, magnatum flos, Egeberte,” fol. 157v. 122, To Gregory IX,
“Sancte Pater, cuius disponitur omne manu ius,” fol. 157v. 123 (same as
no. 118), “Si Statensis honos relevans de pulvere pronos,” fol. 158r. 124,
The Carnival, “Festa celebrando Carniprivalia quando,” fol. 158r. 125,
To Odo, “Spera figurarum cum sis pulcherrima finis,” fol. 158v. 126, Death
of Milo of Nanteuil, Bishop of Beauvais, ““O mors digna! Mori clarum
clerique Milonem,”’ fol. 158v.

No. 20, fol. 159r. 127, To Gregory IX in favor of John Blund, Arch-
bishop-elect of Canterbury, “Sancte Pater, cuius discretio cismata mundi,”
fol. 162r, (r.) 128, The Bourges-Bordeaux Controversy, “‘Pressos erumpnis
releuans tibi quinque columpnis,” fol. 166r.

Nos. 129-130, 132-144, are addressed to Peter Siler, whom he designates
as ‘Bordo.’ No. 131, To Michael of Villoiseau, Bishop of Angers, “ Discussor

veri, decus admirabile cleri,” fol. 169r, interrupts the series. 129, “Petre [7

Siler Petra sile iam noster Homere,” fol. 168v. 130, “Ad nova qui nichil
es, Petre, versibus in veteranis,” fol. 168v. 132, ““Est attendenda tibi lis
tum de profitenda,” fol. 169v. 133, “‘Nuper in Andegavi que nosco docere
putavi,” fol. 169v. 134, “Fingunt fraude pari quod sit mihi mos imitari,”
fol. 170v. 135, “Improperant quod sum quasi cecus quem mihi casum,”
fol. 170v. 136, “Sollivagum minime socialem Bordo tibi me,” fol. 171r.
137, “‘Basochie misere ve nobis quot periere,” fol. 171v. 138, “‘ Bordo
feceris equi soboles nequissima me qui,” fol. 172r. 139, “Quid loquar
erravi quando te Bordo vocavi,” fol. 173r. 140, “‘ Peter Siler, socie Bordonis
predo sophie,” fol. 173v. 141, “Te Pater ut nosci presente pepercimus
hosti,” fol. 174r. 142, ““Hactenus austere se naiades opposuere,” fol. 174v.

143, “De Petro Silcre volui quasi Petra silere,” fol. 175r. 144, “Res ita |

Venere deberes ergo latere,” fol. 176r.

145, Against William of Coulaines, “‘Nos tua barbaries dampnat, Wil-
leme, Latinos,” fol. 176v. 146, To Fulk Basset, Bishop of London, “‘Quod
michi Fulconis de nobilitate videtur,” fol. 177v. 147, To Theoderic of Wied,

— ef oe Ue Ol

za
ol.
cte
Lis,
4),
17,
‘ol.
tos
ve
lec
Vir
y xX,
24,

25,
ath

ted,

vy
a

or
ie

Master Henry of Avranches 63

Archbishop of Tréves, “‘Predicta reliquiis patrem Trevir inclita sedes,”
fol. 178v. 148, Death of Robert Passelewe, “‘Cantatus mihi totiens,”’ fol.
179r. 149, Death of Robert Passelewe, “‘Nullus aque, nullus peccati terminus
in se est,” fol. 179r. 150, To a Bishop, Asking for a Vacation, “‘Presul vir
preclare,” fol. 179v, (r). 151, To a Master asking for a Vacation,” In
adventu Redemptoris,” fol. 180r. 152, To Conrad of Heimbach, “Op-
pressum morbis consolaturus amicum,” fol. 180v, (r). 153, To William
of Raleigh, Bishop of Winchester, “Presul Wintonie, cleri Willelmi lucerna,”
fol. 181r. 154, To William of York, Bishop of Salisbury, ““Te, Willelme,
quidem qui flos et fructus es idem,” fol. 18lv. 155, To Peter des Roches,
Bishop of Winchester, ““O Petre de Saxis, qui cleri summus es, ac sis,”
fol. 182r, (r). 156, The Trinity, ‘Dum volo presentis epitheta retexere
festi,” fol. 183r. 157, St John the Baptist, “Precursor Domini, pre iudice
missus in urbem,” fol. 184r. 158, The Censors and the Lawyers, *‘O censores
delegati,” fol. 184v.

159, Grammatical Treatise, “In mediis ditonas has lector precipe partes,”
British Museum, Add. MS. 23892, fol. 84-87. 160, Grammatical Treatise
on Accents, ““Accentus varias. Dicto et determinato,” MS. Laon 465.
161, Equivoca, “‘Augustus, ti, to, Cesar, vel mensis habeto.”” This poem
appears in many MSS and is attributed to several grammarians, but the
earliest MS. seems to be MS. Arras 798 which lists it as “ Equivoca Magi-
stri Henrici.” Cf. Diss, chap. III, note 85 ff.

162, Vita beati Edwardi, see Appendix A, item 2. 163, Vita beati Georgii,
see Appendix A, item 2.

Cotorapo COLLEGE.

THE COVERS OF THE LORSCH GOSPELS

By MARGARET H. LONGHURST anp CHARLES RUFUS MOREY!

I. Tue Vatican Cover?

EW Carolingian manuscripts are better known than the finely

illuminated Gospel-book from S. Nazarius in Lorsch, half of
which figures as Pal. lat. 50 in the Vatican Library, and of which the
other half is in the Bathyaneum in Karlsburg, Hungary. The Vati-
can codex in fact contains only the Gospels of Luke and John, the
first two Gospels being in the Hungarian collection.

The division of the manuscript apparently occurred in the latter
part of the fifteenth century, since a rebinding at that time is re-
corded by a note at the end of the Vatican manuscript. It was then
that the famous ivory plaque illustrated in Plate I became the front
cover of the Vatican portion, while a silver-gilt plaque with a repre-
sentation of the Crucifixion supplied the back. Originally, however,
the ivory plaque (now detached from the manuscript and preserved
in the Museo Cristiano) formed the back cover of the Gospel-book,
as may be seen by the three large holes in the right central panel
which served in the binding of the book. We shall see later that this
is confirmed by traces of the fittings of the clasps that fastened the
original codex which exist on the left central panel. The plaque
which is the pendant to the Vatican ivory, and formed the front
cover of the codex, is the well-known ivory of the Victoria and Albert
Museum which will be discussed in a second article.

This relation was first pointed out by Graeven,’ and confirmed
by Goldschmidt’s observation that the London plaque contains in

1 Studies in the Art of the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library, edited by C. R. Morey
and E. Baldwin Smith, No. 4. The first three of this series of Studies are still awaiting publica-
tion, as follows: No. 1, E. S. King, ‘A Copper-gilt Cross Reliquary,’ in the Memorie of the
Pontifical Academy of Archaeology; No. 2, Edward Capps, Jr, ‘An Ivory Pyxis,’ in the

Art Bulletin; No. 3, William C. Hayes, Jr, ‘ An Engraved Glass Bowl,’ in the American
Journal of Archaeclogy.

2 A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der Karolingischen und Sdchsischen
Kaiser (Berlin: Cassirer, 1918), I, nr. 13.

* H. Graeven, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, X (1901), 15.

Pate I

Rome, Vatican Liprary, Museo Cristiano: THe Cover or THE Lorscn GosPELs

The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels 65

its lower panel the Nativity and the Annunciation to the Shepherds,
while that of the Vatican is ornamented in this panel by the history
of the Magi, showing thus a chronological sequence from the front
cover to that of the back.

On the Vatican panel we see the Magi before Herod and bringing
their gifts to the Child, who sits, cross-nimbed, on His Mother’s knee,
with a very large Star of Bethlehem above His head. The stylistic
effect of this panel is decidedly mediaeval, but one feels closer to the
antique on raising the eyes to the central panels, where we find the
figure of the Saviour and two angels, illustrating by virtue of the
animals at the feet of Christ the thirteenth verse of the ninety-first
Psalm: ‘super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem
et draconem.’ Still more Hellenistic are the angels in the topmost
panel, supporting a disc with conch-filling against which is relieved
a decorated cross. Of this panel, and its antique quality, we shall
have more to say later.

During the course of the work that is being carried on with a view
to the publication of a catalogue of the Museo Cristiano, the Lorsch
plaque came under examination along with other ivories, and a re-
quest was made for the removal of the five panels from their setting
in order that examination might be made of the posterior faces.
This request was granted by Mgr Mercati, Prefect of the Vatican
Library to which the Museo Cristiano belongs, and the delicate task
of demounting the thin and brittle pieces was successfully carried out
under the supervision of S. E. Pio Franchi de’ Cavalieri, under whose
special supervision the Museo Cristiano is placed. The liberation
of the pieces from their setting not only revealed some interesting
facts about their backs, but also made it possible to see how the
panels were put together,' and what is more important, to recon-
struct the surprising history of the plaque as a work of art.

1 It will be noted from the posterior faces of the panels reproduced on Plates IV and V
that the outside edges of A, B, D, and E have a set-off which was evidently intended to fit
a wooden backing excavated in the centre and bearing this set-off on its rim. For dovetailing,
the upper panel A is grooved on its lower edge to fit over the tongues projecting upward from
B, C, and D. B is dovetailed into C by a tongue along its right edge, and C in the same way
into D. B,C, and D dovetail into E by a tongue projecting from their lower edges. All these

dovetails are fastened by dowels except in the case of the upper and lower horizontal edges
of C,

66 The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels

To save the reader’s time and patience, there are reproduced in
Plate II the five plaques in their present liberated state, and in
Plate III their outlines, with the numerous holes in each indicated
by numerals. The explanation of these holes may be briefly given
by reference to the numerals, as follows:

1. Holes, notches, or fractures due to the rivetting or nailing of
the metal strips of the mounting (see Plate I) to the wooden board
that formed the backing of the plaque: A 3, 20 (holes 1, 5, 6, and 12
are broken out from the same cause); B 21, 24 (18 is broken out from
the same cause); C 5, 7, 12, 13, 15 (1 is broken out from the same
cause); D 1, 7, 8, 14, 17, 19; E 6, 7, 14 (12 and 16 are broken out
from the same cause).

2. Corresponding holes for the insertion of pegs to secure the
dovetailing of the panels together: A—B, A7-B5, A8-B4, A10—B2,
Al1l1-B1; A-C none; A-—D, A15—D2, A16—D3, A18-D6, A21-—D5;
B-C, B18-C9, B20—-C8, B22-Cé6; C—D, C14-D18; B-E, B12-E2,
B14-E4, B16—E5, B22-E3: C-E none; D-E, D22-E8, D24-E9,
D25-E10. A11 still retains a portion of its peg.

3. Holes for nailing the plaques to a previous wooden backing:
A 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13?, 147, 17, 19?; B 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17;
C 1?, 2?, 3, 4?, 107, 14? 16?; D 9, 10, 12, 13? 16, 26, 28; E 1, 11, 12,
13, 15, 16. A portion of iron nail remains in B17, C3, and C10.

4. Holes inserted in D for binding purposes: 11, 15, 17.

5. Holes plugged: A 11, 13, 14, 17, with ivory or bone; 9 with
wax. B 13, 15, 17, with ivory or bone; 7 with wax. D 11, 15, with
ivory or bone; 27 with wax.

6. Rust stains: red stains as of iron-rust in or around A 9, 13,
14, 17; B 7, 17; C 3, 10; D 9, 20. Green stains on the grooves on
the back of B at 8 and 10, and on its front at 9; on D at 12 and 16,
front and back, and on the front at 26; on E at 10, front and back.

The fact that the green stains, coming from bronze or copper
nails or pegs, occur in the regularly spaced holes along the outside
border of the plaque, while the iron-rust and the remains of iron
nails are found in the case of the holes of the interior, indicates an
original fastening of the plaque to a wooden backing by means of

t
e
-
>
L.
),
:
is
2,
h
th
3
yn
6,
k
er
de

a ELM) r/

fy $3580)

if
LAY A

wit

Priate IT

Tue Ivory PANELS oF THE Lorscn Book-coveR

Museo CRISTIANO:

VaTICAN LIBRARY,

Rome,

The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels 67

bronze or copper nails, while the irregularly placed holes that betray
the erstwhile presence of iron nails must be the result of later repairs.
The green stains connected with the grooves on the back of B at 8
and 10 are evidently the traces of the bronze or copper strips in-
serted in these grooves and forming part of the clasps of the codex.

Plate I shows the plaque as mounted before the removal of the
panels, and evidently in the same condition as when it served as the
front cover of Vat. Pal. lat. 50. It was mounted within a wooden
casing, the posterior face of which was covered with red silk. The
use of the plaque in this form as a book-cover is still attested by the
pieces of cords and of binding paper, as well as fragments of pasted
cloth, which appear along the left edge of the wooden board. The
other edges of the board are bevelled and bound with a silver sheath-
ing adorned with a foliate design in low repoussé. Another trace of
use as a book-cover is to be seen in the interruption, on the right
edge, of the modern copper-gilt strips, in two places which were
evidently the locations of clasps. The clasps were fastened by nails
inserted in two holes in the wooden backing which have also cut
through the silver sheathing. To note the splits caused by the nails
once driven through B7 and C3 completes the descriptive data
gained by the recent examination of the plaque, with the important
exception of what was revealed upon the back of the panels.

The back of B revealed nothing except the two grooves for the
insertion of the bronze or copper strips to which the original clasps
were attached, and one of the combinations of scratched lines which
occur on all the panels and may have been assembly marks. On
A was found a very faint drawing of a beardless head with short
curly hair, and one of a draped right arm with fingers extended in the
gesture of speaking (Plate IV). The back of C shows at its top two
quills beautifully drawn in ink. On D appears another drawing — a
segment of a circular border inclosing an ornament which consisted
of alternating inverted and upright palmettes; the artist drew two
palmettes only, as sufficient to record the motif. Finally, on the
back of E was found the incised inscription and monogram (in
Greek letters) whose description is made unnecessary by the repro-
duction of the back of this panel on Plate V.

68 The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels in

The name incised at the top of the panel is readily restored: |
Fl. AnastasiuS PAVLVS PROBVS / Sabinian. PompEIVS
ANASTASIVS. Flavius Anastasius Paulus Probus Sabinianus —
Pompeius Anastasius, consul at Constantinople in 517 a.p., is known — :
to us by four of the ivory diptychs which the occupants of the con- |
sular office in the fifth and sixth centuries used to distribute among
their friends as souvenirs of the honor. Two of these preserve both
the leaves of the diptych: a diptych in the Cabinet des Médailles of
the Bibliothéque Nationale at Paris (Plate VII), and another of ©
which one leaf is in the Museum of Berlin and the other in the Vice
toria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. Of each of the ~
other two only one leaf is known — a plaque in the library of the
chapter of the cathedral at Verona, and a fragment that was for-
merly in the Janzé collection in Paris but is now lost.' It is evident —
that our panel E was made out of another of Anastasius’ diptychs, "
by planing off the ornament on its front and carving a new set of
reliefs on the back.

This diptych, however, differed from the four already known in
that the latter conform, — with variation in the subjects displayed at
the bottom of the plaque, — to the figured type wherein the consul
is represented seated on an elaborate chair, raising in his right hand ~
the mappa circensis with which he gave the signal for the games of
the circus to begin. In the space below him the small reliefs refer fy
for the most part to these games. Our panel was of the simpler
‘ornamental’ type of diptych, like that of Justinianus, consul inf)
521, which is illustrated on Plate V. We may supply from the latter
the tabella in relief which contained the incised name of the consul andy) ©
the tondo, likewise in relief, which formed the border of the monogram|_
in the centre of the panel. Other ornament in relief which fell victim’

to the planing-off of the panel included doubtless a motif at the bot- be
tom such as the rosettes on the Justinianus diptych. The original
width of the panel, calculated on the space taken by the missing —
letters of the name, must have been roughly m.0.125, which is that)
of two out of the four diptychs of Anastasius already known. The)
name concealed in the Greek monogram is not yet deciphered; it is

1 E. Molinier, Les Arts appliqués a l Industrie (Paris: Lévy, 1896), I, Ivoires, 23 ff.

“G7

19 {5 16

Pxate III

Diagram Snow1nc Location or Hoes IN THE Ivory PANets or THE LorscHu BooK-coveR

The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels 69

not necessarily that of the consul, however, but might be that of the
recipient of the diptych. In any case the demounting of panel E has
brought to light a fifth diptych of Anastasius, and of a type hitherto
unknown among his diptychs.

It will be remembered that on the back of panel D appears a
drawing of a segment of circular border, adorned with alternating
upright and inverted palmettes. The fact that the same motif is
used to ornament the tondo on the plaque of Justinianus makes it
likely that the artist who carved the other side of the panel made
a memory-note in this fashion of the antique ornament of the diptych
which was re-used for E. If this is the case, the short-haired curly
head and gesturing arm that are faintly drawn on the back of A
assume considerable importance. For if a memory-note was made
in one case, it is likely that we have the same in the other, and that
the head and arm on the back of A are also copied from an antique
original that was before the artist as he worked.

That such an antique model existed, and that both the Vatican
five-part plaque and its pendant in the Victoria and Albert Museum
were copied from an Early Christian diptych of the fifth or sixth
century, was made evident by Graeven in the article already cited.
His conclusion was based mainly on the plaque in South Kensington,
and the parallels which he could draw between its curious associa-
tion of the Madonna with the Baptist and Zacharias, and a well-
known miniature in the Vatican Cosmas Indicopleustes, and between
the flying angels supporting the medallion (inclosing the bust of
Christ as in the case of the South Kensington plaque, or inclosing
the cross as in the case of that of the Vatican) and the customary
decoration of the upper panel of the five-part diptychs of the sixth
century, one of which is illustrated in Plate VI. The miniatures of
the Cosmas Indicopleustes are Alexandrian conceptions of the sixth
century, and the five-part diptychs of the type illustrated in Plate VI
belong to the same school that produced the Cathedra of Maximianus
in the Museum of Ravenna. The evidence for the Alexandrian origin
of this monument was collected by E. Baldwin Smith,’ and the

1 E. Baldwin Smith, “The Alexandrian Origin of the Maximianus Chair,’ Amer. Jour.
| Arch., XXI (1912), 22-37.

70 The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels

majority of archaeologists at the present time accept this provenance |
for the Cathedra and the ivories connected with it. To these indi-
cations that the original of our two plaques was a diptych of Alex-
andrian provenance or style may be added the fresco described
by Neroutsos-Bey ' in the catacombs of Alexandria, representing
‘Jésus-Christ . . . d’un age juvénile et les pieds nus .. . au milieu des
serpents, des crocodiles, des lézards et d’autres reptiles de toute forme
et de toute espéce’; a lion is also described among the animals around
the Saviour, and while His figure is flanked immediately by two §
defaced and unrecognizable figures, the fresco terminates at either |
end with the figure of an angel. To the author cited, the fresco 7
resembled so much the group on the Vatican plaque that he repro- 7
duced the figure of Christ from the latter by way of illustrating the 7
fresco. Further evidence for the Egyptian origin of this type, so 7
like the Horus trampling the crocodiles of Pharaonic art, is given
by Baldwin Smith in his Early Christian Iconography, apropos of its
use on another mediaeval copy of an Early Christian original, the
ivory book-cover in the Bodleian at Oxford.’

The drawing on the back of panel D removes the difficulty in the
way of recognizing the Christ and His attendant angels as copies
from an Alexandrian original. An Early Christian Alexandrian
Christ would have worn the hair short, to judge from the steady use
of this type of Christ in Alexandrian-Coptic monuments, while on
our ivory the hair falls long upon the shoulders. The memory-sketch f
on the back of panel D evidently reproduced the right arm and ges-
turing hand of the Christ of the original, and also in a rough way
the short curly hair of His head. This also accounts for the curious
effect given by the locks on Christ’s shoulders, in the mediaeval
carving; they seem like artificial locks fastened to the base of the
skull, rather than the natural continuation of the hair of the cranium.
The copyist followed his model faithfully to the extent of producing
a curly head with short hair, and then added the shoulder locks that
were indispensable to the type current in his school — the ‘Ada’

1 [’ Ancienne Alexandrie (Paris: Leroux, 1888), pp. 47 ff.
2 E. Baldwin Smith, Early Christian Iconography and a School of Ivory-carvers in Provenct
(Princeton University Press, 1918), pp. 146 ff.

LE AT EI TS AY A LEE Se TS EI ss SS SS SP mart Sn nattihtatestdint sts sae

UAAOI—MOOG HOSUO'] AHL JO (fT ANV ‘D “Y ‘YY STANVG dO Sdovy NOlUaLSOg

AI 24vV1dg

The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels 71

type of Christ familiar to students of Carolingian and Ottonian art.
The same effect is afforded, in somewhat less pronounced fashion,
by the head of Christ in the medallion on the upper panel of the
plaque in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The above furnishes good evidence that the central panels of the
Vatican plaque are fairly faithful copies of the corresponding panels
of a five-part Alexandrian diptych. The scenes of the Magi in the
lower panel, in view of the pronounced mediaeval aspect of the
figures and the architecture, can hardly be so considered. As to the
upper panel, with its flying angels supporting the disc that incloses
the cross, it is nothing less than the surviving panel of the original
Early Christian plaque.’

It is true that the copyist has been so faithful to his original, in
the three central panels, that it is difficult to detect at first the differ-
ences that betray the more antique quality of the upper panel. The
right hand of the angel on the left resembles closely, in finger length
and the mode of fashioning the nails, the right hand of the Christ.
The articulation of the right foot of this angel is no better than that
of Christ’s left foot. The upper lip of the same angel seems to be
reproduced in the same feature as it occurs in the faces of Christ and
the angels of the central panels. But one notices that in the latter
the feature becomes exaggerated until it reaches the effect of a
mustache.

More significant differences emerge on careful examination.
The quatrefoil rosettes of panel A have become hexafoil in B, and
in both B and D they lack the clear differentiation of the central
and lateral ribs of the acanthus leaves. The draperies that disappear
upon the too boldly modelled forms of the central panels are more
antique and functional upon the flying angels of panel A, where the
tendency to incise the folds upon the form is visible, but not nearly
so exaggerated as upon the figures of B, C, and D. The grooves of
the dangling folds of the pallia of the angels in A cut through the edge
at the end of the garment; in the panels below they commonly stop
short, leaving the undulating edge of the drapery continuous. The

1 Miss Longhurst wishes to withhold judgment on the date of this panel until she has
had an opportunity again to examine the original.

|
|
.
i

72 The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels f

hair which is rendered in impressionistic lumps on the heads of the
flying angels has in the hands of the copyist become a series of styl-
ized corkscrew locks. The eyes of panel A look like those of the
consular diptychs of Greek style ' (see Plate VII), with the character-
istic protruding eyeball and its drilled incision; in the central panels
this incision is surrounded by an incised circle. The deep fluting
of the conch behind the cross in the medallion held by the flying
angels, and the sharp relief of the scalloped edge of the conch, have
been flattened out in the nimbi of Christ and His angels. The addi-
tion of balls at the angles of the cross has been shown from an
interesting statistic compiled by E. S. King? to be a peculiarly
Egyptian practice of the Early Christian period. The motif of re-
lieving the cross against a conch, difficult to parallel in later periods,
is a frequent practice of Early Christian Coptic ornament, as exem-
plified by the limestone niche-cap in the Cairo Museum (from Edfu),
dated by Strzygowski in the sixth or seventh century, which is re-
produced on Plate VIII.’

The conclusion indicated by the comparisons above given, that
panel A is the surviving portion of the original Early Christian
plaque, is borne out by the greater spontaneity and vigor of its
execution, and confirmed by the richer color of the ivory of this panel,
and by its physical relation to the rest of the book-cover. It is
evident for example that the three-sided shape of the lower edge
of the panel is not original, since the bias cutting on the left goes "
through a portion of the angel’s drapery, and the dovetail hole 18
on the other side pierces the angel’s foot. On the horizontal central
part of the lower edge appears the incised remains of such a garland
ornament with central medallion as appears on the upper panel of
the five-part plaque illustrated in Plate VI; this has been planed off,

ete,

1 Edward Capps, Jr, in a forthcoming article in the Art Bulletin, gives convincing evidence
for the attribution of the ‘ Greek’ consular diptychs to Alexandrian ateliers.

2 art. cit., p. 1, n. 1.

8 J. Strzygowski, Koptische Kunst, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Egyptiennes du Mush
du Caire (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1904), 43, no. 7300. Other examples: ibid., 40, Abb. 47, from
Luxor; W. E. Crum, Coptic Monuments, Cat. gén. . . . du Musée du Caire (Cairo: Inst. frang
d’arch. orientale, 1902), Pl. XLV, 8665, and Pl. XLVI, 8671, from Esneh; O. Wulff, Altchr.
und Mittelalterl. Bildwerke: Kgl. Museen zu Berlin, Beschreibung der Bildwerke der christlichen
Epochen (Berlin: Reimer, 1909), III, 1, nos. 282, 233, from Luxor and Philae respectively.

~ MSR
;

Ng \ WV 2 ¥
LV Ay Wi a ide
reuse
2° 4a 7G /

5 mn
SR

~ in at a pen alle

-
|
|
i]
i

SaaS Te

eR aS a At

Pate V
Posterior Face or Panet E or tHe Lorscu Book-cover.
Lear or A Diprycu or JustintANnus, ConsuL IN 521 A.D.

LLC ENE ALON ee TSR AO NR tii

MDOT,

Prats VI

Lear or A Five-part Diptycu 1x THE BiniiotHeQue NATIONALE, Paris

ne
ys
th
th
lig
ne
vé
B
th
ur
fo
as
th
or
pa
ial
th
th:
an
an
Lo
ex
mi
as]
res
rai
to
onl
en!
pal
wh
He
the

The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels 73

no doubt to conform the thickness of this panel to that of the rest.
The reason for the cutting of the corners of the panel appears from
the condition of the upper panel in the five-part plaque of Plate VI;
the dovetailing weakened the ivory at these points so that they are
liable to fracture, and it was a condition of this sort that made
necessary the cutting-off of the corners of the panel A.! ‘Lhe mediae-
val artist who carved the rest of the plaque had to adjust his panels
B and D to the thus abbreviated shape of the upper panel, and from
this arises the peculiar arrangement of the Vatican book-cover,
unique among the five-part plaques thus far known. Unique, save
for the same arrangement in its pendant of South Kensington, where,
as will be shown in the next article, demands of symmetry caused
the repetition of the appearance of the Vatican plaque.

The Vatican plaque is thus a restoration, apparently close to the
original in the central panels and less so in the lower panel, of a five-
part diptych of the Alexandrian style which had deteriorated in its
middle and lower panels to a point that demanded replacement of
these and was broken as to the lower corners of its upper panel so
that these had to be trimmed. It is natural to suppose that the
antique plaque was one of the original covers of the Lorsch Gospels,
and to connect this restoration with a passage in the Chronicle of
Lorsch which states that the Abbot Salmann (972-998) ‘tres libros
ex ebore et argento mirifice vetustari fecit,’ for the transitive vetustart
might very well carry the meaning of ‘to be restored to their antique
aspect.’ Goldschmidt believes that the passage refers to a later
restoration and that the Vatican plaque dates in the ninth century,
raising thus a question which will be largely the theme of our article
to follow.

At any rate, the demounting of the Vatican book-cover has not
only added another to the limited list of consular diptychs, but has
enriched the material of Early Christian art with a carved ivory
panel of first-rate quality, the surviving member of a five-part plaque
which is earlier in style than any so far known. By its vigorous
Hellenism it reflects a phase of Alexandrian style that is even anterior

1 The lower corners of the upper panel of the well-known five-part ‘Barberini’ plaque in
the Louvre are completely broken away.

74 The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels

to the Cathedra of Maximianus, and it is impossible to date the panel
later than the second half of the fifth century.

In an article to follow! will be given the findings resulting from
the demounting of the plaque in South Kensington which was carried
out this summer, and an attempt will be made, as indicated above,
to define more closely the date at which the Vatican plaque and the
pendant in the Victoria and Albert Museum were manufactured.

1 Article No. 2, cited p. 64, n. 1, above.

ear ton

rstem fi (Py rt ie
nit i ie DUT
Ne 23 at AVATAR |

—_——

Pirate VII

ConsuLar Diperycn or Anastasius, Consut Nn 517

F
t
Bi

Puate VIII

Coptic Limestone Retier rrom Eprvu, VI-VII Century

Ini
tha

An.

In t

The
nish

And

Scienc

NOTES

BEOWULF 1039 AND THE GREEK 4apx:-

Tue Rex regum of Vulg. Rev. 17.14; 19.16 (cf. 1 Tim. 6.15; | 2 Macc. 13.4)
was several times imitated in Old English poetry, mostly in the form of
eal(l)ra cyninga Cyning, and always in the first hemistich. The series be-
gins with the Andreas, if the argument I have elsewhere * presented with
regard to its relative date is accepted. Two instances occur (978, 1192).
In the former of these, the alliterative word is an adjective:

Gewat him pa se halga _heofonas sécan,
eallra cyninga Cyning __ pone clnan ham.

In the second, the alliterative word is a noun: Andrew reproaches the devil
that he had been cast into darkness,

par pé cyninga Cyning clamme belegde.

Arrived at the Christ, we find Cynewulf employing the adjective of
An. 978, and calling the Saviour (Chr. 136)

ealra cyninga Cyning, ond pone cl&nan éac
Sacerd.

In the other case (Chr. 215), the noun is the name of Christ:
ealra cyninga Cyning, Crist slmihtig.

The lines at one time regarded as belonging at the end of the Christ fur-
nish one instance, with a noun in the second hemistich (Pseudo-Christ 1681) :

ealra cyninga Cyning ceastrum wealde®.

The Juliana (289) has one instance, with a noun alliterating:
ealra cyninga Cyning td ewale syllan.
In the Christ and Satan (205), Christ furnishes the alliterative word:

mid ealra cyninga Cyninge, _ se is Crist genemned.

And the same is true in Hymn 3.22:
ealra kyninga Kyning, Crist lifiend.

1 Rendered by Zlfric, Hom. 1.8: ‘Hé is ealra cyninga Cyning, and ealra hlaforda Hlaford.’
‘The Old English Andreas and Bishop Acca of Hexham’ (Trans. Conn. Acad. of Arts and
Sciences 26.270-6).

76 Notes

But, if we may judge from statistics ' based on the Judith (350 lines), ¢
is one of the consonants least used for alliterative purposes; on the other
hand, h has almost the highest rank in that respect. Now as cyning, with
other words which signify lord, ruler, etc., might often be conveniently used
in the line, on condition that they began with some other letter, the Old
English poets have prefixed to such terms a qualifying word, signifying
some appropriate trait or relation, and by this means have satisfied the
requirements of this branch of their poetical technique. Thus, besides the
simple cyning, we have, in the Beowulf, eleven common nouns framed from
it, beginning respectively with }, e, f, g, h, 1, s (2), p, and w (2). Of these
compounds, the one that most concerns us here is héaheyning, which, by
the way, is the only one in Beowulf, of seven nouns in héah-, which denotes
a person.

Héahcyning occurs only once in the poem (1039), and there in allitera-
tion with another of those coinages which, whatever other purposes they
may serve, are useful in this technical respect. This word is hildesetl,
‘war-seat, saddle,’ as héahsetl (1087) means ‘throne,’ and meodosetl (5),
‘mead-seat, hall-seat.’ The poet, in 1039, is introducing an elaborately
adorned saddle belonging to King Hrothgar, who is about to bestow it on
Beowulf after his conquest of Grendel. It is a war-saddle, and it is the
saddle of no mean king, yet it is bestowed upon a wandering knight who
has come in quest of adventure:

peet wees hildesetl héahcyninges.

Hrothgar is, then, a high king, a chief king, or, we might say, a king of
kings. Just how shall we interpret this? Does it mean that Hrothgar,
envisaged as a Northumbrian ruler, is figured as a Bretwalda — like one
of the three Northumbrians ? who, beginning with Edwin (617-633), con-
tinue with the sainted Oswald (634-642), and end with Oswy (642-671)?
If Hrothgar in some sense persénates Aldfrith * (685-705), under whom
we conceive ‘ the idea of the poem to have been framed, such an allusion
would not be without its pertinence, seeing that Oswald was Aldfrith’s
uncle, and Oswy, the Bretwalda of widest sway and influence, was his
father. For, however the star of Northumbria had paled under Ecgfrith,
Aldfrith’s brother, and under his own rule, the recollection of its compara-
tively recent glories must have been eagerly cherished in the following
generation.

1 See my edition (Boston, 1888), pp. lix-lxi; 2d ed., 1889, pp. Ixv—lIxvii.

2 Bede, Eccl. Hist. 2.5.

° ‘The Possible Begetter of the Old English Beowulf and Widsith’ (Trans. Conn. Acad.
of Arts and Sciences 25.319 ff.).

4 Ibid., pp. 348 ff.

ee) £2) te fet See OS Oh

Lol

i-
y
l,
)s
y
n
ie
0

Notes 77

Even before the period within which we may reasonably believe the
Beowulf to have been composed, the prefix héah- had begun to be em-
ployed in words expressive of eminence. A datable instance is found in the
laws of Wihtreed, King of Kent, which are assigned to 695.!_ In the proem
to the laws, it is stated that there was present, as the first-named of the
notables by whom the code was framed, Berhtwald, ‘Bretone héahbiscop,’
being the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, after an interval of three years,
immediately succeeded (consecrated 693) Theodore of Tarsus, and who
died in the year when Bede completed his Ecclesiastical History.2 It is
clear, from this mention of him in the laws, that héahbiscop is, by 695, the
translation of the Latin archiepiscopus, which eventually came to be ren-
dered in Old English as ercebiscop, our modern archbishop.

The equation of héah- with Latin archi-, Greek apx-, is reflected in
various Old English compounds of later date than the Beowulf. In the
Andreas, which is a relatively early poem,’ we find not only an instance of
héahcyning (6), this time as a kenning for God, in a formula, heofona Héah-
cyning, which becomes a favorite with poets,‘ but also héahengel (885) and
héahfeder (791, 875), in both of which the equation with the Greek is pre-
served (dpxayyedos, ratpiapxns). In Cynewulf there are five instances of
héahengel (Chr. 202, 403, 528, 1018; El. 751), and one of héahfeder (Jul.
514); noteworthy, too, is the occurrence of héahboda = archangel (Chr.
295), side by side with bodan = angels (Chr. 449). In Alfred’s translation
of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, we have not only instances of héahengel,
but also héahsongere (archicantator), ed. Miller 314.3; héahcreftiga (archi-
tectus), 468.23. About the year 1000, the apxicvvaywyos of Mark 5.38 is
rendered héahealdor in the West Saxon Gospels.

Whenever héah-, then, occurs as prefix in the designation of an individ-
ual, it is fair to presume that it stands, or originally stood, as an equivalent

1 Plummer, Bede Opera Historica 2.86, bottom; 2.186, bottom; cf. my ‘King Oswy
and Cedmon’s Hymn’ (Speculum 2.67).

? In 702 he joined with King Aldfrith of Northumbria in the condemnation and excom-
munication of Bishop Wilfrith, and it was he who consecrated Aldhelm as Bishop of Sherborne.

5 Cf. the reference in note 2.

‘ It constitutes the first hemistich in Gen. 50, 1025, 2165; Dan. 626; Chr. 1340; Ph. 446;
Hy. 3.50; 6.15; 8.42. With the singular of heofon occur, in first hemistichs: Héahcyning
heofones (Dan. 408); heofones Héahcyning (Chr. 150). Other instances of the word in the
first hemistich are: Héahcyninges hies (Gen. 124); halne, Héahcyning (Ps. 118.146); hated
bonne Héahcyning (Sol. and Sat. 173). It occurs at the end of the second hemistich in Gen.
172; Ph. 129, 483; Rid. 40 (41).88, where it stands for the Ovidian Tonans (cf. Shakespeare,
Lear 2.4.230; T. and C. 2.3.11; Cymb. 5.4.30, 95), a word which Aldhelm is fond of employing.
Some form of heofon, in the first hemistich, alliterates with it in the three latter cases; cf. Hy.
7.60: on heofonrice Héahcdsere (see Caseres, Ph. 684).

Three hundred years after the period of the Beowulf, the phrase heofonan Héahcyning ap-
pears in a homily (ed. Napier 142.21) of Wulfstan, Archbishop of York (d. 1023).

:
:
:
j
:
|
;

78 Notes

of the Greek apxi- (or its Latin derivative, archi-). If we apply this canon
to héahcyning, we should naturally suppose that it stood for apxBacvreis.
It is a rather striking confirmation, or at least exemplification, of this
hypothesis that the Greek word is actually found in a document of the year
619, or a little later. This was a petition drawn up in diplomatic, if not
obsequious, terms, requesting, on the part of the Byzantine government,
and therefore no doubt at the instance of the emperor, safe-conduct and
immunity for certain envoys to Chosroes II, King of Persia (590-628).

From the accession of the Emperor Heraclius, in 610, till the death of
Chosroes, the Byzantine empire had successively endured and repelled the
aggressions of the Persians, whose power was soon to be overthrown by the
Saracens. During the first twelve of these years, Heraclius, who had suc-
ceeded the atrocious tyrant, Phocas (602-610), had been unable to avert
the train of misfortunes in which the Persian war had already involved
the Romans for a period of six years before he ascended the throne. Ap-
peals to the magnanimity of Chosroes were in vain: according to Gibbon
(ed. Bury 5.74), ‘the suppliant embassies of Heraclius to beseech his
clemency, that he would spare the innocent, accept a tribute, and give
peace to the world, were rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent
menace.’

At length, in 619, a Persian army overran Asia Minor, laid siege to
Chalcedon, on the opposite shore of the Bosporus from Constantinople,
and captured it. Interviews followed between the imperial officials and
the Persian commander, as a result of which it was decided to dispatch
another embassy to Chosroes. In the words of Gibbon (5.76):

The friendly offer of Sain [Shahin], the Persian general, to conduct an embassy
to the presence of the Great King, was accepted with the warmest gratitude, and
the prayer for pardon and peace was humbly presented by the pretorian prefect,
the prefect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church.
But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master.

Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman practice of his country; and
the separate and rigorous confinement of the ambassadors! violated the law of
nations and the faith of an express stipulation.

After a rehearsal of the mutual civilities which had formerly obtained
between the Persian and the Roman court, and which had been rudely
interrupted by the barbaric Phocas, the petition to Chosroes goes on to
state that, even during the nine years or so of the reign of Heraclius, the
conditions in both empires had hindered the resumption of the former
courtesies. But now — and here we come to the sentence which particu-
larly concerns us — encouraged by the reply of Sain to the overtures for

1 According to Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Roman Biog. (2.404), they were afterwards put
to death.

Notes 79

peace, ‘we have decided,’ say the commissioners, ‘to disregard the past,
and, insignificant as we are, to make supplication to the great King of
kings’! (Bpaxets dvres GvOpora: mpds apxiBaoihéa THALKodTOv TH Senoe xXpH-
cacba).”

We know how the ambassadors were entertained, and what was the
fate of the unfortunate Sain; but nine years afterward, Heraclius, after a
series of expeditions and campaigns, reduced Chosroes to an ignominious
flight, to deposition at the hands of Siroes, his son, and to death after five
days spent in a dungeon. The true cross, as it was believed to be, of which
Jerusalem had been despoiled by the Persians in 614,’ was restored in 629.
This triumph of the Roman arms has been recounted by Gibbon (5.94):

Heraclius performed in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, the identity of the
relic was verified by the discreet patriarch, and this august ceremony has been
commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross [Sept. 14]. . . .
He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of
France and India; and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules was eclipsed,
in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and glory of the great Heraclius.‘

But how could the author of Beowulf, or an adviser of his, royal or
ecclesiastical, have known of the word apxiBac.debs, of which héahcyning
seems to be a translation, seeing that only one instance of it has been ad-
duced? In the first place, this may not have been the only occurrence of
the word in Greek literature; in the second place, those in England who
were familiarly acquainted with Greek might have coined the word on the

analogy of such as we have cited above, perhaps assisted by their know-
ledge of passages like Ps. 48.2; Matt. 5.35 (‘great King’), or, again, Rev.
17.4; 19.16 (‘King of kings’). But, apart from these possibilities, what
more likely than that Theodore of Tarsus should have been acquainted with
the salient facts in the life of Heraclius during the years from 610 to 629?
When the petition was penned, he would have been seventeen years of
age, and, when the cross was restored to Jerusalem, would have been twenty-

1 The recognized title of the Persian monarch, in view of the fact that the governors of
provinces and of the larger cities were often called kings.

2 Chronicon Paschale (ed. Bonn, 1832) 1.708.14-15. For the authenticity of this petition,
see Gibbon, ed. Bury 5.76, note 88; cf. p. 75, note 87; p. 87, note 116; p. 90, note 127; p. 92,
note 129; p. 93, note 182; pp. 496-7.

3 Gibbon 5.70.

* Cf. Dict. of Gr. and Roman Biog. 2.405: ‘The blessings of his subjects followed him
wherever he went, and his fame spread over the world from Europe to the remotest corners
of India. Ambassadors from that country, from the Frankish king, Dagobert, and many other
eastern and western princes, came to Constantinople to congratulate the emperor on his hav-
ing overthrown the hereditary enemy of the Roman empire.’

Finlay (Hist. of Greece 1.313) calls the reign of Heraclius ‘one of the most remarkable
epochs, both in the history of the empire and in the annals of mankind.’

80 Notes

seven. When he was twenty-four, one of the most important battles of
the whole war was fought within thirty or forty miles of his native Tarsus.
In the spring of 626, Heraclius was rapidly pursuing the retreating Per-
sians. The battle is thus described by Gibbon (5.84-5):

The bridges of the Euphrates were destroyed by the Persians; but, as soon as
the emperor had discovered a ford, they hastily retired to defend the banks of the
Sarus, in Cilicia. That river, an impetuous torrent, was about three hundred feet
broad; the bridge was fortified with strong turrets; and the banks were lined with
barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict, which continued till the evening, the
Romans prevailed in the assault, and a Persian of gigantic size was slain and thrown
into the Sarus by the hand of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed
and dismayed.!

The contrast between the abject humility expressed by the petition of
619 and the glorious deliverance of the Roman empire by Heraclius ten
years later may have formed a theme of declamations in the Athenian
schools to which Theodore had listened, or in which he had engaged; and,
in order to point the first term of the antithesis, the very words in which
the representatives of the government had placed themselves at the feet
of the Archking, the High King, may conceivably have been quoted.?

We should, however, remind ourselves that Theodore was not the only
channel through which Byzantine influence was, directly or indirectly,
reaching England in the seventh century. To some of these I have ad-
verted in the paper (pp. 6-8) mentioned in note 2, below.’ To others
attention is called in a recent work by N. Aberg, The Anglo-Saxons in Eng-
land during the Early Centuries after the Invasion (Upsala, 1926). The
following quotations from Aberg have a bearing on our problem, and with
them I bring this paper to a close:

Pp. 6,7. Their [the Lombards’] conquest of Italy was . . . of radical impor-
tance, not only for themselves, but also for the peoples of Middle Europe, as it
opened for them the way to the Mediterranean, thereby rendering possible the
establishment of connections with the flourishing Byzantine civilization, and with
the Orient. . . . The foreign influences appear in the decoration of the Burgundian
buckles, where old Germanic motives appear together with the plant- and animal-
worlds of the Orient, griffins and lions, classically intertwined acanthus foliage.
Step by step this development is followed; we see how the influence from the east
more and more gains the upper hand over the old Germanic, which finally succumbs
and dies away. This development, which is in full swing at the beginning of the
seventh century, is the prelude to the Carolingian renaissance, and is the result of
the Lombard invasion of Italy.

1 Cf. Dict. of Gr. and Roman Biog. 2.404.

2 Cf. my ‘Theodore of Tarsus and Gislenus of Athens’ (Philological Quarterly 2.19 ff.).

3 See, for instance, in that article (p. 7, note 23) the reference to the institution at Rome of
the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (see above, p. 79). This was in 701, and with Sergius
the English Aldhelm may have conversed (see my ‘Sources of the Biography of Aldhelm,’
Trans. Conn. Acad. of Arts and Sciences 28.283).

>, Ch ae eee ae A

ity

ot!
Cl

Notes 81

The effects of the political convulsions at the end of the sixth century extend
far and wide within the Germanic world; they extend to Scandinavia in the north,
and in the west they reach England. During this critical period falls the flowering
time of the Kentish culture. To Kent came the influences of the continental inter-
laced work and animal ornamentation of Style II. A more palpable proof of the
active influence of the new connections, however, is afforded by the considerable
influx into Kent of Byzantine or Oriental products and semi-precious stones.

P.155. As far as can be judged, Kentish culture flourished and bloomed rapidly,
and beyond all doubt under exceptionally favorable circumstances. The profusion
of gold and rare stones and exotic products, some coming from far-distant lands,
makes it probable that these circumstances were the result of political and com-
mercial conditions.

P. 163. A find dating from the 7th century, containing naturalistic animal orna-
ments, is the beforementioned grave from St. John’s in Cambridge. ... If the
animal motives in question may be assigned to the 7th century, they must conse-
quently be unconnected with provincial-Roman art, and are thus rather to be
regarded as manifestations of Oriental-Byzantine impulses.

Pp. 172, 173. The Germanic interlaced work does not go back to the beginning
of the migration period, and does not derive from imperial classical art, but will
chiefly originate from. Byzantine prototypes. . . . Only through the close connec-
tions with Byzantine culture, which flourished with the Lombard penetration to the
Mediterranean, was interlaced work seriously incorporated into Germanic art. Its
time of greatest development feli therefore after the year 600. ... During the
latter half of the 6th century, the influences of the continental interlaced work seem
to have reached Anglo-Saxon England, but without having made themselves much
felt there at that time. ... This state of things is changed, however, with the 7th
century, and interlacing flourishes richly also on Anglo-Saxon territory.

ALBERT S. Coox,f
Yale University.

TWO DOCUMENTS CONCERNING ARCHBISHOP
ROGER OF YORK

Arter the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket on 29 December 1170
his opponents were for a long time in great trouble. It was not indeed
suggested that they were in any sense accomplices in the act, but it was
held that their previous doings were indirectly the cause of it. Among
these opponents the highest in position was Roger, the archbishop of York.
He had just before taken part in the coronation of Henry II’s son in spite
of the pope’s prohibition, and he had therefore been suspended from his
office by Alexander III. Not until October 1171 did the pope give author-
ity for his restoration, and this was only to be effected on definite con-
ditions. He was required to swear before the archbishop of Rouen and
other ecclesiastical officers that he had not maintained the Constitutions of
Clarendon, that he had never by word or act done anything that led Arch-
bishop Thomas to his death, that he was ignorant that the pope had for-

82 Notes

bidden the coronation of the young king, and that at that coronation all
things were duly performed.' It is stated that the terms of Roger’s pur-
gation were properly carried out,? and in December the archbishop issued
a rescript to the clergy and people of his province notifying the fact. In
this document the address is correctly given, but the terms on which his
absolution was granted are discreetly omitted. More than this, about two-
thirds of the rescript are occupied by a vehement denunciation of his op-
ponents. This part is so remarkable that it is necessary to print it in full.

Fecerunt hoc qui jampridem sederunt mihi in insidiis. Et quidem primo para-
verunt laqueum suspensionis, quo dominus papa plus eorum falsas suggestiones
quam juris ordinem secutus, me innodavit. Deinde, ne quoquomodo solvi posset,
iniquitatem iniquitati addentes, hinc maximorum virorum libellos arte multiplici,
sicut jam a pluribus retro annis instructi fuerant, conquirebant; inde peregrinorum
et qui me numquam viderant multitudinem subornabant, ut ea quae non noverant
mentientes, apud summum pontificem et curiam Romanam quocunque modo famam
onerarent. Absens eram, et qui ex parte mea in curia pauci tantae multitudini vix
resistere poterant, tam exquisitis pressi mendaciis, maxime cum quidam, solo
habitu religiosi, videntes illos prosperari in iniquitatibus suis, cum illis currebant, et
neglecto Dei timore ad eversionem dignitatis ecclesiae nostrae, una cum meretrici-
bus suis quas secum duxerant, ne quis sexus persecutioni meae deesset, multa dixe-
runt. Hi omnes in unum convenientes proposuerunt in cordibus suis gigantes
imitari, parietem ex maximis quasi quibusdam lapidibus et multis mendaciis, fictis
ad tempus suspiriis et gemitibus, non solum domos, sed et plateas replentes diurno
et nocturno ululatu, eundemque ipsum parietem tanquam quodam indissolubili
bitumine, vim naturae facientes, simulatis lacrimis linierunt, sperantes hoc modo
coelum claudere se posse, et veritatem perpetuo carceri deputare. Quid plura?
Idem Pharao illorum, ille spiritualis, cujus ipsi membra sunt, in tali equitatu in-
cedere videbatur cum corona, et ego, miserae cophini servituti deputatus, respicie-
bam ad auxilium hominum, et non erat. Cuti enim meae, consumptis carnibus, os
meum adhaeserat.?

This whole passage seems to be an interpolation, an invention composed
with the design of showing that the oath taken by the archbishop was, to
say the least of it, insincere. I will notice only two points. There is men-
tion of a suit at the Papal court where Roger’s adversaries appear cum
meretricibus suis: this is a manifest travesty. Secondly, Becket is spoken
of as ‘Pharaoh.’ Now at that time few works were more familiar than St
Bernard’s sermons on the Canticles, and there in serm. xxxix the name
Pharaoh is treated as almost convertible with diabolus. This then was
the language in which Roger was represented to have spoken of the martyred
archbishop in a document notifying his absolution.

1 J. C. Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury
vir (1885), 500.

2 Tbid., p. 502. So too Arnulf of Lisieux, ep. 57 (misplaced by Robertson, vii, 495).

3 Robertson, vii, 504 seq.

(
I
(
i

for ‘

rlici,
rum
rant
nam
| vix
solo
t, et
rici-
lixe-
ntes
ictis
urno
ubili
10d0
ura?
1 in-
icie-
S, 08

»sed

Notes 83

The use of the name Pharaoh infuriated the Canterbury clerks, and they
determined on reprisals. This appears from a letter which is preserved in
the immense Becket correspondence and which J. A. Giles included among
John of Salisbury’s letters as ep. 305. This letter is addressed to the arch-
bishop of Sens, nephew to Bishop Henry of Winchester, in the name of
miseri illi quit quondam fuere Cantuarienses.' It begins with a sober lamen-
tation over the murder, but soon breaks out into invective against Arch-
bishop Roger and his friends, and charges Roger with grave immorality. I
proceed to quote the following passage.

Sedent e regione blasphemi, qui sub nomine et honore sacerdotali, sacerdotium
persequuntur, principibus adulantes, persecutorum ecclesiae justificantes causam,
exultantes in rebus pessimis, scilicet quod potestatibus astiterunt adversus Domi-
num et adversus christum ejus, cujus sanguis, per eos effusus! militum ministerio,
de terra clamat ad Dominum magis quam sanguis Abel justi, quem frater ipsius
interemit.

Horum caput est ille Eboracensis, quem vidistis et audistis palam in curia archi-
episcopum persequentem, et qui indignus fuerat ore sacrilego, quo necem martyris
procuravit, ipsius proferre nomen: eum plane mendosus et mendax, jam inauditis
coruscantem miraculis adhuc, sicut ex litteris ejus patet, nominat Pharaonem. Sed
non movemur, si flagitiosa bellua martyrem non honorat, quae, sicut opera mani-
festa convincunt, Deum utique non veretur. Dicitur tamen quod parat ad curiam
proficisci, ut purget vitae sordidae notam, quasi homo qui justiciam fecerit, et non
dereliquerit judicium Dei sui. Et ne ipsius purgatio valeat impediri, procuravit ut
nulli nostratum liceat transfretare, nisi domini regis impetrata licentia. Quae
quidem obtineri non potest, nisi praestetur cautio, quod nihil? queretur contra
martyris persecutores. Quid ergo facient miseri zelantes legem, videntes justitiam
opprimi, et sibi exitum denegari? Sed certe verbum Dei non est alligatum, et
vobis libertas est et os patens ad ecclesiam Romanam, et notissima veritas.

Novistis enim martyrem in vita sua, novistis causam ejus, novistis et nos qui
coexsulavimus illi: novistis et istum Caipham temporis nostri, qui sub specie con-
querentis persuasit expedire, et unus moreretur aut caperetur, ne tota gens periret.
Eratis in Anglia cum patruo vestro domino Wintoniensi, quando idem nunc Cal-
phas, tune archidiabolus, Walterum illum, cujus adolescentis admodum venusta
facie inductus,? nefario concubitu nimis consueverat delectari, hispidum et pro-
caciori lingua evomentem probra, quae in contumeliam naturae perpessus fuerat,
oculis orbari fecit. Et postmodum scelus arguentem idem archidiabolus, judicibus
qui saecularia negotia exercebant corruptis, adegit suspendio. Sic vir ille, non
minus benignus quam pudicus, columbi sui acceptavit affectum. Sic veteris amasii
diu exhibitum obsequium remuneravit, ut primo stuprum inferret misero, deinde

1 According to Bréal, Recueil, xv1, 619, one manuscript contains the rubric, Epistola
Johannis Saresberiensis et clericorum beati Thomae. If John wrote any part of the letter he
certainly wrote no more than the opening paragraph.

? After effusus Giles’s text of Joh. Saresb. Ep. cccv adds licet.

* Robertson reads nihil quod.

* In several manuscripts the words ne dicatur are here inserted, but in one they are marked
for omission.

SER NG PEN

84 Notes

miseriori, quia de consensu tam sordidae immunditiae poenitebat, capulationem et
oculorum avulsionem infligeret, et tandem miserrimum, quia clamore, ut poterat,
suas protestabatur angustias, suspensum in patibulo fecerit jugulari.'

The letter goes on to say that it was through the instrumentality of
Becket himself that Pope Eugenius III was persuaded by the bishops of
Chichester and Worcester to admit Roger to purgation. The alleged of.-
fence therefore belongs to some time between 1151 and 1153. It is not
worth while to discuss the impossible caricature of judicial proceedings
which the letter contains — it was part of the furniture of the lowest type
of medieval controversy; —I will only note that no hint of the charge
against Archbishop Roger is contained in any of the chronicles and cor-
respondence of the time. Had such a scandal been known it is scarcely
conceivable that Roger could have been made archbishop of York in Octo-
ber 1154. Nevertheless this fiction has survived as a stain on Roger's

character ever since.
REGINALD LANE POOLE,

Oxford, England.

NOTES ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE
SECRETUM SECRETORUM

THE SEVENTH Book or GowEr’s Confessio Amantis

Gower frequently represents the seventh book of the Confessio Amantis
as reproducing both generally and in details the instruction that Aristotle
gave to Alexander the Great. An example of a specific bit of such advice
is the following:

Tawhte Aristotle, as he wel couthe,

To Alisandre, hou in his youthe

He scholde of trouthe thilke grace

With al his hole herte embrace (vii, 1727-1730).

Of the seventh book as a whole he writes at the end of the sixth book:

As I you herde speke above
Hou Alisandre was betawht

To Aristotle, and so wel tawht
Of al that to a king belongeth,
Whereof min herte sore longeth
To wite what it wolde mene.

In the marginal Latin at the beginning of the eighth book, indicating how
he intends to continue, he refers to the contents of the seventh:

? Robertson, vii, 527 seq.

a — © fF. &

Notes 85

Postquam ad instanciam Amantis confessi Confessor Genius super hiis que Aris-
totiles Regem Alexandrum edocuit, una cum aliarum Cronicarum exemplis seriose
tractauit, iam ultimo in isto octauo uolumine ad confessionem in amoris causa regre-
diens tractare proponit super hoc.!

In this passage Gower indicates that he has taken matter from other
writers than Aristotle, but that the backbone of his work is Aristotelian.
As has often been remarked, he did not follow any of the genuine writings
of Aristotle, but the spurious Secretum Secretorum, one of the popular
works of the Middle Ages. Loose and inaccurate statements about Gower’s
indebtedness to this work by various writers, some of whom apparently had
never read it, led to a reaction; in his edition of Gower, Macaulay writes:

The statement of Pauli and others that this part of Gower’s work is ‘very likely
borrowed’ from the Secretum Secretorum is absolutely unfounded. This treatise is
not in any sense an exposition of the Aristotelian philosophy, indeed it is largely
made up of rules for diet and regimen with medical prescriptions. Gower is indebted
to it only in a slight degree, and principally in two places, vii. 2014-2057, the dis-
cussion of Liberality in a king, and 3207*-3360*, the tale of the Jew and the Pagan.”

Whether Macaulay means by the word part the earlier portion of the
seventh book to which he refers in the preceding sentence, or the entire
seventh book, is not clear; his references are not to the earlier part of the
book. At any rate he leaves his reader with the opinion that Gower is in-
debted to the Secretum only for scattered fragments, and not, as the poet
himself says, for his plan as a whole. This impression has been modified by

Mr George L. Hamilton, who has shown that ‘Gower was indebted to a
French version of this work for the material of some of his “‘ensamples,”
and for the suggestion of some others.’* The seventh book of the Confessio
Amantis, then, owes much of its material to a developed version of the
Secretum Secretorum in which much has been added to the original though
something has been omitted. Gower has also added matter and handled
freely that of the Secretum itself, but his production is still in the tradition
of the original; it may be thought of as one of the late stages in the evolu-
tion of the work, modified but still giving clear evidence of its origin.

In addition to the Secretum in the form of the version of Jofroi de
Watreford, it seems that Gower may have had other versions, possibly one
of them still further removed from the original form than that of Jofroi.
Such a conception as Gower’s five points of kingly policy (truth, liberality,

! See also vii, 18-22, 5398-5407, and Gower’s Latin account of his works immediately
following the Confessio Amantis.

* The English Works of John Gower (ed. G. C. Macaulay, London, 1901), II, 522.

* ‘Some Sources of the Seventh Book of Gower’s Confessio Amantis,’ Modern Philology,
IX (1911-12), $86. The French version is that by Jofroi de Watreford. It was translated into
English in 1422; the translation is the third English version in Three Prose Versions of the
Secreta Secretorum, ed. Robert Steele, Early English Text Society, 1898.

86 Notes

justice, pity, and chastity) would probably have been derived from some
treatise rather than devised by the poet himself. Yet the accessible versions
of the Secretum, though dealing with these points, do not give any reason
to feel that five is a necessary number. Gower perhaps would have modi-
fied a source, as he does the division of philosophy into three parts which he
derived from Brunetto Latino. He does not follow exactly, for he omits
the classification of logic entirely, and puts rhetoric in its place. But
Brunetto does deal at length with rhetoric in such a way as to make plain
that Gower’s classification, whether deliberately or carelessly changed, may
have come from him. Hence it seems within reason to postulate a version
of the Secretum or some selection from it in another work in which might
be found the reason for Gower’s five points.
At least Gower emphasizes that these points are five and that they come

from Aristotle:

Bot of verray necessite

The Philosophre him hath betake

Fyf pointz, whiche he hath undertake

To kepe and holde in observance,

As for the worthi governance

Which longeth to his Regalie,

After the reule of Policie (vii, 1704-1710).

The numbering of the points is kept clear in both the text and in the mar-
ginal Latin. In the Latin, two of them, liberality and chastity, are speci-
fically assigned to Aristotle, and the others, with chastity as well, are
spoken of as policies ‘principum regiminis’ or ‘ad principis regimen.’ A
natural interpretation of these words is that they refer to the Secretum
Secretorum, which, in whole and in part, was known in both Latin and the
vulgar tongues by various forms of the title De Regimine Principum.
Without the name of Aristotle, Gower might be supposed to have used the
words in a general sense, or possibly to be referring to one of the other
works known by the same title. Since any other explanation would imply
mistake or misrepresentation by Gower, it is simplest to assume that he
really used some work purporting to be the Secretum Secretorum.

There is little to which the Secretum can be assigned as a source before
line 1699, where the five points of policy are introduced.' Gower was ap-
parently conscious of this, for at the beginning of the book he announces
his intention of telling what Aristotle (and Calistre?) wrote to Alexander,

1 Mr G. L. Hamilton has pointed out that Gower’s passages on astronomy (670-679)
and astrology (633-663, 679-684) owe something to the Secretum (art. cit., p. 341).

2 ‘The mention of Callisthenes as an authority is a gratuitous one’ (ibid., p. 323), and
the same author’s ‘Studies in the Sources of Gower,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philol-
ogy, XXVI (1927), 510-11.

fa Oe fh es ww

= ce

so Fee

Oxf

Notes

but adds:
Bot for the lores ben diverse,
I thenke ferst to the reherce
The nature of Philosophie,
Which Aristotle of his clergie,
Wys and expert in the sciences,
Declareth thilke intelligences,
As of thre pointz in principal (vii, 23-29).

This rehearsal, for which Gower took the outline from Brunetto Latino,
covers theoric, rhetoric, and three heads of practic. The last section of

practic
techeth hou and in what wise
Thurgh hih purveied ordinance
A king schal sette in governance
His Realme, and that is Policie,
Which longeth unto Regalie
In time of werre, in time of pes (vii, 1680-1685).

In developing this last by means of the five points of policy, Gower fulfils
his promise to tell what Aristotle wrote to Alexander, that is, to present
matter from the Secretum, which in the Middle Ages was thought of as
a letter from the philosopher to the king — ‘una vero de suis epistolis est
hec quam direxit Alexandro.’ '

There are a number of passages, hitherto unmentioned, which by sug-
gesting indebtedness to the Secretum in either an original or modified form

further support Gower’s assertions that he made that work the model for
the seventh book of the Confessio Amantis.

Gower advises the king to adhere to the truth, for it is ‘an unsittende
thing’ (1736) for a king to lack honesty, because he is above others in
power and should be

Most vertuous in his degre (vii, 1748).

The Latin exhorts the king against breaking promises ‘quoniam hoc con-
uenit infidelibus, iuuenibus et meretricibus’ (56.21); the passage requires
the logical inference that deception does not befit one at the other end of
the social scale. Further, if the emperor breaks faith, ‘exemplum erit
reprobum’ in one whose position makes him responsible for the preservation
of good faith, without which society would cease to exist. Gower is also
concerned with the king’s oaths:

Avise him every man tofore,

And be wel war, er he be swore,

For afterward it is to late,

If that he wole his word debate (vii, 1741-1744).

' Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, fasc. V, Secretum Secretorum (ed. Robert Steele,

Oxford, 1920), p. 38, line 5.

88 Notes

In the advice to Alexander we read:

Quis te compulit tam frequenter iurare? Non est hoc faciendum sine magna
necessitate. Rex uero nisi multus rogatus et frequenter requisitus non debet
iurare; nescis quod non conuenit regie dignitati et derogat honori quando iuras
(57.15)?

Macaulay has already noted that parts of Gower’s passage on liberality
(vii, 2017-2023, 2031-2035, 2039) are derived from the Secretum. It may
be added that in the margin we read of the ‘policia quam Aristotles largita-
tem uocat,’ and that largitas is the word used in the Latin (43 passim). The
word surely is not decisive, but it is true that in the mediaeval translation
of Aristotle’s Ethics (book iv), used by Aquinas, liberalitas is employed.
In Gower’s English and in the English prose versions of the Secretum the
word is largesse. If parts of the passage on liberality come from the advice
to Alexander, it may be assumed that other parts which resemble sentences
in the same chapter of the Secretum are also derived from it. The lines

So sit it wel in alle wise
A king betwen the more and lesse
To sette his herte upon largesse (vii, 2014-2016)

suggest the following: ‘Palam siquidem est, quod qualitates multum repro-
bande sunt quando multum discrepant a medio’ (43. 10). Compare also

Avarice
Which in a king is a gret vice (vii, 2023-2024)

with: ‘Nomen auaricie decedet multum regem et disconuenit regie magestati’
(43.33). The following likewise resemble each other:

A king behoveth ek to fle

The vice of Prodegalite,

That he mesure in his expence

So kepe, that of indigence

He mai be sauf: for who that nedeth,

In al his werk the worse he spedeta (vii, 2025-2030).

Et qui fundit uitra modum diuicias suas ueniet cito ad amara littora pauper-
tatis, et assimilatur illi qui gratis super se dat uictoriam inimicis suis (43.21).

Macaulay assigns to the Secretum one line from the following:

He [Aristotle] bad, in his corage

That he unto thre pointz entende,
Wher that he wolde his good despende.
Ferst scholde he loke, hou that it stod,
That al were of his oghne good

The yiftes whiche he wolde yive;

So myhte he wel the betre live:

Sass &

Notes

And ek he moste taken hiede

If ther be cause of eny nede,
Which oghte forto be defended,
Er that his goodes be despended:
He mot ek, as it is befalle,
Amonges othre thinges alle

Se the decertes of his men;

And after that thei ben of ken
And of astat and of merite,

He schal hem largeliche aquite,
Or for the werre, or for the pes,
That non honour falle in descres,
Which mihte torne into defame,
Bot that he kepe his goode name,
So that he be noght holde unkinde (vii, 2086-2057).

But the whole is obviously founded on the passage:

Si uis largitatis uirtutem acquirere, considera posse tuum, et tempora necessi-
tatis, et merita hominum. Debes igitur largiri bona tua iuxta posse tuum cum
mensura hominibus indigentibus atque dignis. Qui igitur dat «liter peccat, et
regulam transgreditur largitatis: quia qui largitur dona sua non indigentibus, nullam
acquirit laudem, et quicquid datur indignis perditur (43.15).

Gower reverts to the same idea somewhat later:

Be this ensample a king mai lere

That forto yive is in manere:

For if a king his tresor lasseth

Withoute honour and thonkles passeth,

Whan he himself wol so beguile,

I not who schal compleigne his while (vii, 2131-2137).

He also opposes prodigality to measure:

So as the Philosophre tolde,

A king after the reule is holde

To modifie and to adresce

Hise yiftes upon such largesce

That he measure noght excede:

For if a king falle into nede,

It causeth ofte sondri thinges
Whiche are ungoodly to the kinges.
What man wol noght himself mesure,
Men sen fulofte that mesure

Him hath forsake: and so doth he
That useth Prodegalite,

Which is the moder of poverte,
Wherof the londes ben deserte (vii, 2151-2164).

90 Notes

The source is partly in the passage:

Qui uero fundit regni sui bona immoderate seu inordinate, et indignis dat et non
indigentibus, talis est depopulator reipublice, destructor regni, indignus et incom-
petens regimini (43.28).

Gower’s word deserte is apparently suggested by depopulator, which is not
rendered in the English versions. In the margin we read: ‘ Nota hic secun-
dum Aristotilem, qualiter Principum Prodegalitas paupertatem inducit com-
munem.’ This is not a quotation from the Latin, though it represents the
sense of the passage; the nearest verbal parallel is in the first English

version:

He that dispendeth the goodis of his Rewme out of ordir and discrecioun, and
yevith suche as be not worthi, ne haue no nede therto, that kyng distroyeth his
peple and the comoun good of the Rewme, and is not worthi forto regne, for he is

fool large (8.2).

Possibly Gower had a text in which some form of the word communis

appeared.
In advising the king to be just, Gower writes:

He which schal the poeple ryhte,

It sit wel to his regalie

That he himself ferst justefie

Towardes god in his degre:

For his astat is elles fre

Toward alle othre in his persone,

Save only to the god al one (vii, 2728-2734);

Forthi unto king Alisandre

The wise Philosophre bad,

That he himselve ferst be lad

Of lawe, and forth thanne overal

So do justice in general,

That al the wyde lond aboute

The justice of his lawe doute,

And thanne schal he stonde in reste (vii, 3084-3091).

There is some suggestion of these passages in the following:

Dico iterum quod sapientes philosophi et diuinitus loquentes dixerunt quod
inprimis deceat regiam maiestatem obtemperare se legalibus institutis, non in ficts
apparencia set in firma et uera facti euidencia, ut cognoscant omnes ipsum Deum
timere excelsum, et esse subiectum divine potencie. Tunc enim solent homines
reuereri et timere regem quando uident ipsum timere et reuereri Deum (47.21).

Gower’s sit perhaps translates deceat.
For his discussion of pity Gower perhaps borrowed something from

Jofroi de Watreford; the poet writes:

FF FF 2 eee

Notes

It sit a king to be pitous

Toward his poeple and gracious

Upon the reule of governance,

So that he worche no vengance,

Which mai be cleped crualte (vii, 3125-3129).

Here also perhaps sit translates decet in Jofroi’s quotation from Seneca:
‘Nullum ex omnibus clemencia magis quam regem aut Pryncipem decet.’ !
This passage is in a section added by Jofroi to the original Secretum.

Gower writes further:
Pite, hou so that it wende,
Makth that the god is merciable,
If there be cause resonable
Why that a king schal be pitous.
Bot elles, if he be doubtous
To slen in cause of rihtwisnesse,
It mai be said no Pitousnesse,
Bot it is Pusillamite,
Which every Prince scholde flee . . . .
Of Aristotle’s lore I finde,
A king schal make good visage,
That noman knowe of his corage
Bot al honour and worthinesse:
For if a king schal upon gesse
Withoute verrai cause drede,
He mai be lich to that I rede (vii, 3520-3550) .?

The nearest parallel is found in the third English version:

A kynge sholde be Pyteous, Enchu wreth, and the mowrnynges of his corage to
hyde and hele, that he be not y-holde hastly by lyght Shewynge of his wrethe,
othyr vnwyse. If hit happe a kynge to do any thynge vnawyssely, he owyth hit repel
vmbethoght avysely, and wyth reyson know his defaute. Full grete vertu and
Souerayne vysdome of connynge is hit in a kynge that he can gouerne hym selfe
aryght, And that he hym Selfe well demene. And whan a kynge shall do any thynge
opynly, he shall not be ouer hastely ne ouer Slowe, that he be not holde hasty ne
Slow (138.9).

The marginal note in the Confessio Amantis contains one word (pusillani-
mitas) characteristic of the verse:

Hic loquitur secundum Philosophum, dicens quod sicut non decet Principes
tirannica impetuositate esse crudeles, ita nec decet timorosa pusillanimitate esse
uecordes.

1 T quote from the third English version (180, $4) on the assumption that it represents
Jofroi’s version. 1 have been unable to see the analysis of the version of Jofroi given by
C. V. Langlois in the recent 2d ed. of his Connaissance de la Nature et du Monde au Moyen Age.

* Cf. Gower’s In Praise of Peace, 148-154.

92 Notes

This perhaps is not a quotation; at any rate it does not appear in the Latin
as we have it; in the comparable section of Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes,
founded partly on the Secretum, cruelty and tyranny are mentioned (e.g.,
stanza 430). Hoccleve also insists that the king should punish the guilty
by death if necessary (stanza 446); this is reaffirmed by Gower:

To slen it is a dedly vice,

Bot if a man the deth deserve;

And if a king the lif preserve

Of him which oghte forto dye,

He suieth noght thensamplerie

Which in the bible is evident (vii, 3855-3859).

The first line suggests a passage in the Secretum which Hoccleve also uses
in his section on pity (stanza 445):

Noli igitur sanguinem humani generis per te effundere, quoniam hoc soli Deo
conuenit, qui nouit occulta cordium et secreta hominum (55.26).

The remainder of Gower’s passage gives a thought natural to one who be-
lieved that the king should punish the guilty, as is advised under fortitude
in the third English version (181.14), and in the Latin of Bacon’s edition
under the head of justice (50.12).
Gower’s last point of policy is chastity. In advising the prince against
chambering he writes:
A Prince him scholde avise,

Er that he felle in such riote,

And namely that he nassote

To change for the wommanhede

The worthinesse of his manhede (vii, 4252-4256).

The Latin says that unchastity ‘femineos mores generat’ (51,12), but the
nearest parallels are found in the third English version:
The foly company of women destrueth the body, sorthyth the lyuedayes, ondyth

al vertues, ouerpassyth the lawys of god, And doghty men and hardy hit makyth
lyke women, neshe and feynte, dedis of armys to done (139.5).

Well wyste the wyse Prynce that loue of women and brandynge fylthed of le-
churie nesshyth a manes herte and hym makyth lyke a womon, So that he lesyth
his Streynth, and hardynesse, and manhode, and chyualrie (190.6).

The second quotation is from one of the parts added to the original. In
the next paragraph Gower writes:

Of Aristotle I have wel rad,
Hou he to Alisandre bad,
That forto gladden his corage
He schal beholde the visage

—

not
It j

Notes

Of wommen, whan that thei ben faire.

Bot yit he set an essamplaire,

His bodi so to guide and reule,

That he ne passe noght the reule,

Wherof that he himself beguile (vii, 4257-4265).

The marginal Latin repeats the thought and the attribution of it to Aris-
iotle, yet it is not found in the Secretum. Perhaps Gower found it in an
expanded version of the work, or in some other book purporting to give
some of the Philosopher’s advice to the King.

In the margin of the section dealing with chastity are the words:
‘Aristotiles. O Alexander, super omnia consulo, conserva tibi calorem natur-
alem.’ As Macaulay observes, this is from the Secretum. Yet there the
advice has no connection with chastity, but with medical measures for
preserving health; the passage runs:

O summe rex, modis omnibus studeas custodire calorem naturalem et retinere,

quia quamdiu caliditas temperata est in homine et humiditas, calor naturalis tem-
peratur et corroboratur, quia sanitas et durabilitas in hiis modis duobus consistit

(88.5).
This is translated in the second English version, and does not appear in the
third. In the first, however, the English corresponds with Gower’s Latin:
‘Alexandre, dere sone, aboue alle thingis kepe thi naturalle hete’ (29.25).
Did Gower have a Latin version in this form, or was he rendering back
into Latin the French from which the first English version was taken?

Mr Hamilton has already pointed out that Gower knew the Secretum
Secretorum in Latin.! The passages he mentions in evidence, like the refer-
ence to bodily heat, are independent of the version of Jofroi, and come
from parts of the work not concerned with goverment; apparently Gower
possessed the whole work in Latin. The poet was obviously familiar enough
with the Secretum Secretorum to justify him in saying that he was modeling
his seventh book on it; he probably used at least two versions, one of which
has not been edited; or if he had but a single version it was not like any
of those now accessible.

Tue Sources or Hoccieve’s Regement of Princes

In 1888 Friedrich Aster issued at Leipzig a dissertation entitled Das Ver-
hiiltniss des altenglischen Gedichtes ‘De Regimine Principum’ von Thomas
Hoccleve zu seinen Quellen. The information contained in this work has
not come to the attention of all English-speaking students of Hoccleve.
It is still said, even in books that may be looked on as authoritative, that

1 Art. cit. supra, p. 341.

94 Notes

The Regement of Princes is a translation of the De Regimine Principum of
Egidio Colonna, which Hoccleve names as one of his sources (2052).' While
a superficial comparison of the two works is sufficient to show that Hoccleve
cannot be called a translator, Aster shows precisely what his evident in-
debtedness is, limiting it, with one exception, to short passages in the first
and second parts of the first book. There are two more parts of the first
book, and the second and third books have three parts each. The simi-
larity of title perhaps gave rise to the common erroneous statement. But
there were other books called De Regimine Principum; in the Middle Ages
the phrase was a descriptive title applied to all books of advice to rulers
rather than an individual name.

Aster also shows that a large amount of the apparent learning of Hoc-
cleve, some of which troubled Furnival, came from one of the other ac-
knowledged sources, the Chesse Moralised of Jacob de Cessoles.? From this
work Hoccleve drew far more than from any other source.

A third work on which Hoccleve (2051) says he drew is the Secretum
Secretorum. To this work, as one of the type giving advice to princes, some
form of the title De Regimine Principum is often applied; Hoccleve calls it
Aristotle’s ‘book of governance.’ Furnival gives a few passages from the
Secretum on which lines of Hoccleve depend, but his list is much less com-
plete than Aster’s. He does, however, include stanza 444, which Aster
omitted.

After listing the passages which Hoccleve derived from the Secretum,
Aster presents one which he believed to come from that work but was
unable to discover in it:

Iustice is of the kynde and the nature

Of god; and he hath made it, and ordeyned
On remes and on euery creature (2507-2509).

On this there is the marginal comment: ‘Aristoteles capitulo de forma é
modo iusticie. “Iusticia est de natura dei,” &c.’ It is doubtless true that
these words were not in the Latin text used by Aster, but in the first of the
three English versions edited by Mr Steele one of the chapters is entitled:
‘Of the forme and maner of rightwisnes.’ The text runs:

Dere sone, rightwisnes may not ben ouer preysid, for it is of the propir nature

of glorious god, and it is made to sustene all Rewmes for helpe of his servauntis,
and rightwisnes owith to kepe the royalle blood, and the richesse of the possessioun

1 The error goes back to the fifteenth century; the text of The Regement of Princes in
MS. 182, part 4, in the Fitzwilliam Museum ends thus: ‘Expl. liber Egidii de regimine
Principum translatum per Occlyffe’ (Montague Rhodes James, A Descriptive Catalogue of
the McLean Collection of Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1912).

2 The Regement of Princes, ed. F. J. Furnivall, Early English Text Society, 1897, p. xv.

— &.

Oot. wat tm

Notes 95

of sugetis, and governe hem in alle her nedes; and what lord doth thus, he is in
that case like vnto god.!

It seems probable that the Latin text used by the maker of the French
yersion from which the English was taken was the Latin text used by
Hoccleve. In other instances Hoccleve’s marginal Latin is in reasonably
close agreement with the text of the Secretum edited by Roger Bacon.?
In Bacon’s text the passage is as follows:

Iusticia est commendacio (siue condicio) laudabilis de proprietatibus Altissimi
simplicis et gloriosi. Unde et regnum debet esse eius quem Deus elegit et constituit
super seruos suos, cui committenda sunt negocia et regimina subditorum, qui debet
speculari et defendere possessiones et diuicias ac sanguinem subditorum et omnia
opera eorundem, sicut deus eorum. Ergo in hoc assimilandus est Deo (123.9-17).

The second and third English versions (92.25; 207.21) agree with the Latin
rather than with the first version. In the Secrees of Lydgate and Burgh we

read that “‘Thyng Celestial is Rihtwysnesse.’ *
Aster has also failed to point out Hoccleve’s indebtedness for the matter

of stanzas 695-700:

Now purpose I, to trete how to a kyng

It nedeful is to do by consail ay;

With-outen whiche, good is he do no
thing;

ffor a kyng is but a man soul, parfay!...

Excellent prince, in axynge of reed,

Discouereth naght your wille in no
maneere;

What that ye thinke doo, lat it be deed

As for the tyme, lat no word appere;

But what euery man seith, wel herkne &
here;

And yit whan good counsail is yeven
yow,

What ye do wole, kepe it close y-now

Til that yow lyke parforme it in dede;. . .

And if that a man of symple degree,

Or pore of birth, or yonge, be wel con-
seile,

Admytte his resoun and take it in gre:...

Nichil sine consilio faciendum est
(136.12). Nichil penitus agas sine con-
silio philosophico (138.14). Fili, neces-
sarium est tibi habere consilium, quo-
niam unus es in hominibus (139.5).

Reserua ergo tuum secretum, et ne in-
cipias eis dicere quod habes in corde, et
non ostendas alicui eorum eleccionem
consilii quod apud te est, et non indica
eis quod uelis ab eis mendicare consilium
(135.8). Quando ergo perceperis rectitu-
dinem consilii in uerbis eorum, fac eos
conquiescere, et non manifestes eis uel
ostendas in quo uoluntas tua quiescat
donec egrediatur in actum et experien-
ciam (135.28).

O Alexander, noli contempnere paruam
staturam in hominibus, et quem uideris
diligere scienciam et habundare in uia
sapiencie et morum et declinare ac fugere
semitam uiciorum: talem ergo dilige et

1 Three Prose Versions of the Secreta Secretorum, ed. Robert Steele, Early English Text

Society, 1898, p. 33, line 20 ff.

® Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, fasc. V, Secretum Secretorum, ed. Robert Steele,

Oxford, 1920.

* Lydgate and Burgh’s Secrees of old Philosoffres, ed. by Robert Steele, Early English

Text Society, 1894, line 2027.

96 Notes

O! worthi prince, beth wel ware, I prey,
That your hye dygnite and sad prudence
No desdein haue of the pores sentence.

Thogh men contrarie eek your oppyn-
youn,

Thei may, per cas, conseile yow the best;

Also ye ben at your eleccioun

To doo or leue, as your seluen lyst.

habeas iuxta te, et precipue tunc quando
uideris ipsum excercitantem animum
suum in hiis uirtutibus (137.33).

Si vero discrepent a tuo arbitrio, tunc
est tuum examinare et considerare, et si
est iuvamentum et utile super eo quod
considerasti, amplectare ipsum, et si est
inutile, abstine ab eodem (139.14).

If it be gode, impresse it in the chest
Of your memorie, and excusith it;
If it naght be, to leue it, is a wyt.

The three English versions give this material with some diversity and omis-
sion, and it is found also in Lydgate and Burgh’s Secrees 2063-2172. It
will be observed that the Latin text advises not that the advice of a humble
or low-born or young man be respected, but speaks instead of a man of
small stature. In the first English version, however, is found:

And if he be a young man that yevith the good conuselle haue him not in dispite
for his youthe (34.9). Dere sone, dispise neuir a man of poore birthe, ne of litille
havyng, ne bi his persone, and thou se in him science and good counselle ($4.35).

The second advises respect for the advice of a young man, but for the rest
gives only little stature (99.24; 100.24). The third version is silent. Lyd-
gate and Burgh advise the king to heed a young man (2075) and say
further:

These experymentys / Owe to meve a kyng,

Nat to despise / A man I the sure,

litel of stede / and litel of growyng,

But afftir he spryngeth / in vertu and norture,

So hym to Cherysshe / owylle of nature,

Whethir he be / of hih or lowe degree,

A kyng floryussyng / in excellent dignitee (2143-2149).

Mr Fulton’s translation from the Arabic is as follows:

Do not show more favor to a younger man than to an older one, except when
the counsel of the younger one happens to be superior.*
A variant reads:

Pay no regard to old men when the advice that comes from a young man could
be more profitable.

The Arabic also contains the sentence: ‘O Alexander, do not despise small
(humble) men’ (p. 234). It appears that the version used by Hoccleve
rendered the Arabic as referring only to station in life, and not to stature.

1 Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, fasc. V, Secretum Secretorum, ed. Robert Steele,
accedunt versio Angelicana ex Arabico edita per A. S. Fulton, etc., Oxford, 1920, p. 233.

Notes 97

Apparently there were in circulation texts of the Secretum that mentioned
the young man and others that, like Bacon’s text, did not; some texts ren-
dered the Arabic as referring to humble station, some substituted little
stature, and others combined the two.
After advising the king not to reveal his purposes until ready to act,

Hoccleve continues:

And if it schal be don, lat it noght tarie,

ffor that is perillous with-oute drede;

There is no thing may make a lond myscarie
More than swiche delay (4874-4877).

The same advice appears at the same point in Lydgate and Burgh:

And when alle thynges / determyned be

By thy counsayl / them put to execucioun,

ffor to a Reem / delayes Cause destruccyoun.

To make dellayes / namely tyme of nede,

Is greet pereel / as philisoffres devyse (2070-2074).

A satisfactory equivalent for this warning does not appear in any of the
English versions or in Bacon’s Latin text. One of the Arabic manuscripts,
however, gives a variant reading which Mr Fulton translates as follows:

And when his advice shall appear true to thee, do not hasten to fulfil it, but
tarry for a day and a night. But if it is a thing which thou art afraid thou couldst
otherwise not carry through, then do it speedily (p. 233).

The suggestion of ruin to kingdoms which appears in Hoccleve and Lydgate
does not appear in the variant, but in one of Mr Fulton’s Arabic manu-
scripts (p. 233), in the Latin (136.6), and in the second and third English
versions (99.21; 209.30) it appears at this place as a warning against favorit-
ism. Is it possible that there were Latin translations made, or at least
corrected, from the Arabic, which have not yet come to the notice of
students?
Hoccleve warns the king against flatterers and the avaricious:

In auxenge eeke of reed, ware of fauel;

Also ware of the auariciouse;

ffor none of tho two can conseile wel;

Hir reed & conseil is envenymouse;

Thei bothe ben of golde so desirous,

Thei rekke naght what bryge her lorde be Inne,

So that thei mowen golde & siluyr wynne (4915-4921).

The Latin reads thus:

Et ille baiulus qui anelat pecunie acquirende, et ad thesauros obseruandos,
non confidas in eo, quia eius seruicium est propter aurum, et dimittit pecuniam
currere cum sensibus hominum, et est profunditas sine fundo, et non est in eo

98 Notes

terminus siue finis, quia quanto magis crescit pecunia crescit intencio acquirendi et
sollicitudo. Et hoc in baiulo est causa corrupcionis regni multis de causis, quia
forte amor pecunie et ardor inducet eum ad tuam mortem uel ad illum qui ad hoc
intendit (140.23).

The linking of flattery with avarice is apparently Hoccleve’s own doing;
none of the versions mention flattery at this point.'
In the next stanza is advice on enemies:
And if your conseil which that ye haue take,
Unto the knowlech or the audience
Of your foos comen be, than let it slake,
And witterly putte it in abstinence;
ffor execute it were an inprudence;
In swich a caas, is wisdam it to chaunge;
Goode is, your conseil be to your foes straunge (4922-4928).

The stanza seems to be derived from the following:

Et noli parcere inimico set in quantum et quantumcunque et quocunque modo

honesto poteris tuam in ipso victoriam manifesta, et in quolibet tempore. Caue tibi
a potencia inimici (139.7).
The second and third English version (101.18; 210.4) and Lydgate and
Burgh (2178) agree with the Latin. In this instance again Hoccleve, if he
is following the Secretum, may have had a text that could be interpreted
to mean what he says.

It is evident that the place of the Secretum Secretorum in mediaeval
thought cannot be properly estimated until more manuscripts have been

published.
ALLAN H. GILBERT,
Duke University.

TWO MIDDLE-IRISH RELIGIOUS ANECDOTES
1. THe INVENTION OF THE CROSS

Introduction

Tue text, here published for the first time, is taken from the facsimile
edition of the ‘Leabhar Breac,’ “The Speckled Book,’? p. 159, col. a, 1. 66 —
p. 159, col. b, 1. 29.3 This well-known MS. was written previous to 1411,
but its language is approximately that of the twelfth century.’ In describ-

1 In the seventh book of the Confessio Amantis, his De Regimine Principum, Gower
speaks of ‘covoitouse flaterie’ in the advisers of a king (line 2168).

2 Abbrev. L. Br.

3 Ed. Robert Atkinson (Dublin, 1876), though his name is not signed to the introduction.

‘ Cf. L. Br., p. xix.

5 Cf. G. Dottin, Manuel d’Irlandais Moyen (Paris: Champion, 1918), I, xiv-xviii.

Notes 99

ing the contents of L. Br., the editor, Robert Atkinson, has incorrectly
included this and the succeeding anecdote in the inedited Irish version of
Bede’s De Locis Sanctis,' which immediately precedes.”

It seems curious that this text should here be inserted in view of the
fact that later in the same MS. there are several longer and more detailed
versions of this anecdote.’ Perhaps the scribe desired to use the remainder
of the available space on the folio, and decided to give a preliminary sum-
mary of what was to follow.‘ At all events, owing to its brevity the immedi-
ate source of this piece cannot be definitely ascertained; but, even it if is
not based at first hand upon the apocryphal acts of St Quiriacus concerning
the invention of the cross,5 there is, nevertheless, little doubt that it is
from some recension of this work.

Text

Imraiter, didiu, sund ni do scelaib in Constantin cetna sin. i. Constantin
meic Elena na hardrigna. 7 ro-gab-side rigi d’éis a athar, 7 ro-indsaig for
ferannaib echtrand i-mach. i. for génntib 7 sair-cenelaib. Ro-bristea, tra,
cath cech 14i for Constantin, 7 ni léctea, didiu, codlud na longud dé fri
mét na hingrema 7 in chocaid bdi fair. Confacca in n-i Michel Archaingel
chuice i n-a shuan.

“Cid do-t-gni * toirsech?” ol in t-aingel.
“Fobith is tromm lém brissed do genntib form,” ol-se.

“Ts follus, tra, na fil nert Crist oc cungnam lat,” ol Michel.
“In e-side ro-crochsat fudaide?” ol Constantin.
“Ts e, imorro,” ol Michel.

! Shortly to be published by me in the Zeitschrift fiir Celtische Philologie.

* For the Latin text of Bede’s work, see J. A. Giles, Venerabilis Bedae Opera quae supersunt
Omnia (London, 1843), IV, 402-443.

> Cf. L. Br., p. 221, col. a— p. 222, col. a; p. 227, col. a — p. 233, col. b; and p. 234, col. b
—p. 236, col. a. Ed. G. Schirmer, Die Kreuzeslegenden im Leabhar Breac (St Gall, 1886).
No doubt misled by the editor’s incorrect description of the contents of L. Br. on p. 10,
Schirmer failed to include this text in his monograph.

‘ The evidence for this theory consists in the scribe’s words at the end of the anecdote
that enough has been “related of the stories of the cross, for they are in the book (L. Br.?)
itself.” On the other hand, it must be admitted that this statement could be taken to refer
to the Latin source from which he was transcribing.

* Cf. Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum (Antwerp, 1680), Maius I, pp. 445-448, and A. Holder,
Inventio Sanctae Crucis (Leipzig, 1889), pp. 1-13. Schirmer (op. cit. pp. 62-70) has discussed
the relation of these Irish texts to their Latin originals. For a bibliography of this subject,
see E. Nestle, De Sancta Cruce: Ein Beitrag zur Christlichen Legendengeschichte (Berlin, 1889),
pp. 82-108.

® MS. dosgni.

98 Notes

The linking of flattery with avarice is apparently Hoccleve’s own doing;
none of the versions mention flattery at this point.!
In the next stanza is advice on enemies:

And if your conseil which that ye haue take,

Unto the knowlech or the audience

Of your foos comen be, than let it slake,

And witterly putte it in abstinence;

ffor execute it were an inprudence;

In swich a caas, is wisdam it to chaunge;

Goode is, your conseil be to your foes straunge (4922-4928).

The stanza seems to be derived from the following:

Et noli parcere inimico set in quantum et quantumcunque et quocunque modo

It is evident that the place of the Secretum Secretorum in mediaeval
thought cannot be properly estimated until more manuscripts have been

published.
ALLAN H. G1ILBErT,
Duke University.

TWO MIDDLE-IRISH RELIGIOUS ANECDOTES
1. Tue INVENTION OF THE CROSS

Introduction

TuE text, here published for the first time, is taken from the facsimile
edition of the ‘Leabhar Breac,’ “The Speckled Book,’? p. 159, col. a, 1. 66 —
p. 159, col. b, 1. 29.3 This well-known MS. was written previous to 1411,
but its language is approximately that of the twelfth century.’ In describ-

1 In the seventh book of the Confessio Amantis, his De Regimine Principum, Gower
speaks of ‘covoitouse flaterie’ in the advisers of a king (line 2168).

2 Abbrev. L. Br.

3 Ed. Robert Atkinson (Dublin, 1876), though his name is not signed to the introduction.

‘ Cf. L. Br., p. xix.

5 Cf. G. Dottin, Manuel d’Irlandais Moyen (Paris: Champion, 1918), I, xiv-xviii.

— ok Ok CL a

fe
ca

ch
—
“7
“T
“ I
“ I

Notes 99

It seems curious that this text should here be inserted in view of the
fact that later in the same MS. there are several longer and more detailed
versions of this anecdote.’ Perhaps the scribe desired to use the remainder
of the available space on the folio, and decided to give a preliminary sum-
mary of what was to follow.‘ At all events, owing to its brevity the immedi-
ate source of this piece cannot be definitely ascertained; but, even it if is
not based at first hand upon the apocryphal acts of St Quiriacus concerning
the invention of the cross,® there is, nevertheless, little doubt that it is
from some recension of this work.

Text

Imraiter, didiu, sund ni do scelaib in Constantin cetna sin. i. Constantin
meic Elena na hardrigna. 7 ro-gab-side rigi d’éis a athar, 7 ro-indsaig for
ferannaib echtrand i-mach. i. for génntib 7 sair-cenelaib. Ro-bristea, tra,
cath cech 14i for Constantin, 7 ni léctea, didiu, codlud na longud dé fri
mét na hingrema 7 in chocaid béi fair. Confacca in n-i Michel 4rchaingel
chuice i n-a shuan.

“Cid do-t-gni * toirsech?” ol in t-aingel.
“Fobith is tromm lém brissed do genntib form,”’ ol-se.

“Ts follus, tra, na fil nert Crist oc cungnam lat,” ol Michel.
“In e-side ro-crochsat fudaide?” ol Constantin.
“Ts e, imorro,” ol Michel.

! Shortly to be published by me in the Zeitschrift fiir Celtische Philologie.

* For the Latin text of Bede’s work, see J. A. Giles, Venerabilis Bedae Opera quae supersunt
Omnia (London, 1843), IV, 402-443.

* Cf. L. Br., p. 221, col. a— p. 222, col. a; p. 227, col. a— p. 238, col. b; and p. 234, col. b
—p. 236, col. a. Ed. G. Schirmer, Die Kreuzeslegenden im Leabhar Breac (St Gall, 1886).
No doubt misled by the editor’s incorrect description of the contents of L. Br. on p. 10,
Schirmer failed to include this text in his monograph.

* The evidence for this theory consists in the scribe’s words at the end of the anecdote
that enough has been “‘related of the stories of the cross, for they are in the book (L. Br.?)
itself.” On the other hand, it must be admitted that this statement could be taken to refer
to the Latin source from which he was transcribing.

5 Cf. Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum (Antwerp, 1680), Maius I, pp. 445-448, and A. Holder,
Inventio Sanctae Crucis (Leipzig, 1889), pp. 1-13. Schirmer (op. cit. pp. 62-70) has discussed
the relation of these Irish texts to their Latin originals. For a bibliography of this subject,
see E. Nestle, De Sancta Cruce: Ein Beitrag zur Christlichen Legendengeschichte (Berlin, 1889),
pp. 82-108.

° MS. dosgni.

100 Notes

“Décha, didiu, in cros-sa,! amal atberum,” ol in t-aingel. “Ar is és9
fuath 7 cumma in craind i-n ro-crochad Crist. Ara n-derntar, didiu, lat-sy
amarach in fuath-sa do cur i slait moir, 7 no-s-beir fri t’ais ? documm in
catha, 7 mad remut moides, creit do-m thigerna-sa co n-neoch con-is mar.
oen frit.”

Ba fir 6n, didiu. Moidid remi iarnabarach co na terna nech di-a némtih
uad. Is ann, tra, ro-creit Constantin do Crist co n-neoch con-anacair ar-oen!
fris.

Atcuas, tra, do Elena. i. di-a mathair in scel-sin. Is ed atbert: “Ro-pad
cobair mor deit, “ol si, “dia m-bad hi croch bunaid Crist no-beth fri t’ais.” !

Co n-id ann-sin, tra, ruc Elena sluagad mor le co Ierusalem do chuinchid
crochi Crist cu-sna hfudaidib, no, didiu, co tardad indrud mor tar-sin
cathraig mine tuctha in croch di. Is ann-sin ro-gabad le tri senoraig do
lucht na cathrach. i, do sain-maicne in lochta ro-crochsatar Crist, 7 boi
Elena oc cuinchid na croichi Coimdeta chucu, 7 ni fétus, tra, uadib a hat-
mal co ro-riagta co mor eat.

Is lor, didiu, innister sunn do scelaib na crochi, ar atatt i-na liubar
fen,® et cetera.

Translation ®

Here now is treated somewhat of the stories of this same Constantine]
who is Constantine the son of the great queen Helena. After his father, he
assumed the sovereignty and waged war on foreign, outlying lands, that is to
say, upon the barbarians and the Eastern peoples. But each day Constan-
tine was defeated;* and he could neither sleep nor eat on account of the
amount of warfare and tribulation that befell him. Then in his sleep,’ he
saw Michael, the archangel, coming towards him.”

1 MS. crosa. 2 MS. friatais. 3 MS. ar ioen. * MS. friatais.

5 As has already been suggested (vide supra, p. 99, note 5), the scribe is here referring to
the apocryphal acts of St Quiriacus concerning the invention of the cross, or he has in mind
the longer and more detailed versions which occur later in this MS.

6 Punctuation and capitalization have been made to accord with modern usage, and al
MS. contractions and abbreviations have been silently resolved.

7 In the preceding passage of L. Br. the scribe has been paraphrasing Bede’s De Lon
Sanctis concerning the founding of Constantinople by the emperor Constantine. It is there
fore only natural that he should begin his account of the invention of the cross by referrig
again to Constantine, since this serves as an obvious link between what has preceded and whit
is to follow.

8 Literally: ‘was broken then the battle each day on Constantine.’ For further example
of the idiom, see R. Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar Breac (Dubli
1887), s. v. ‘brissim’.

® As this is inconsistent with the preceding statement, one may perhaps be permitted
substitute ‘trance’ for ‘sleep.’

10 Literally: ‘He saw that Michael, the archangel, to him in his sleep.’ For the idiomatt
use of in n-f before a proper noun, see G. Dottin, Manuel d’Irlandais Moyen, I, 219, note 2.

, a. a ee

to
cit
th
cif
an

the

Notes

“What makes thee sad?” said the angel.

“T grieve because the barbarians overcome me,” ! he answered.

“It is quite clear that the power of Christ is not assisting thee,” said
Michael.

“Ts he that one whom the Jews crucified?” asked Constantine.

“‘He is indeed,” said Michael.

“Behold, now,” said the angel, “that which we call the cross; for this is
the shape and semblance of the tree on which Christ was crucified. To-
morrow make thou its likeness out of a large rod,? and bear it on thy back
to the battle. And if thou art victorious,’ then do thou, with all those over
whom thou hast power,‘ believe in my Lord.”

This indeed came to pass. On the following day, Constantine was
victorious ° so that not one of his foes escaped him. Thereupon, Constan-
tine, with all over whom he had power,® believed in Christ.

This story was then told to his mother, Helena, and this is what she
said: “It would be a great help to thee if the true cross of Christ were at
thy back.”

Then, indeed, Helena took a large expedition with her to Jerusalem
to demand the cross from the Jews, and to make a great onslaught on the
city unless the cross was given to her. She then seized of the people of
the city three elders from the particular kindred of the tribe that had cru-
cified Christ. And from them Helena demanded the cross of the Lord,
and they could not be got to disclose it until they had been greatly tortured.

But enough is here related of the stories of the cross; for they are in
the book itself, et cetera.

2. Tue REPENTANCE OF LONGINUS

Introduction

This anecdote comes immediately after The Invention of the Cross in the
Leabhar Breac,’ but like its predecessor, it has been wrongly supposed to
form part of Bede’s De Locis Sanctis.* To all appearances, it ® is no more

1 Vide infra, note 3.

? Literally: ‘so that may then be made by thee to-morrow its likeness to putting into a
large rod.”

* Literally: ‘and if it be before thee that it breaks.’ For idiom, see H. Pedersen, Ver-
gleichende Grammatik der Keltischen Sprachen (Gottingen, 1909-1913), II, 574.

* Literally: ‘with any thou mayest be able together with thee.’

5 Vide supra, note 3. ® Literally: ‘with any he was able together with him.’

Cf. L. Br., p. 159, col. b, ll. 30-51. 8 Vide supra, p. 99.

* Thus, for instance, no mention is made of the persecution which Longinus endured at
the hands of the Prefect Octavius, and which constitutes the major portion of the Passio
8. Longini.

102 Notes

than a résumé of the opening paragraph of The Passion of Longinus which
occurs later in the same MS.' Probably this summary was also inserted
at this point in order to fill up the folio. On account of its extreme short-
ness, no definite source can be assigned; but the Latin text from which it
is taken doubtless is based upon the Passio S. Longini.?

Text

Longinus, didiu, 7 Egitianus anmand na dessi batar oc in crochad. i.
Longinus ro-t-n-gon Crist tri a thoeb n-dess co ro-scoilt a cride ar dé * do-n
laigin miled béi i n-a laim, co tanic iar-sin sruth fina 7 sruth usqui a toeb
Isu. Is dib-side do-gnither glan-diunach cuirp Crist 7 a fola i n-eclaisib na
Cristaidi.

In-tan, tra, ro-t-gon Longinus in mac dall clar-ainech toeb [su do-n
goi, rithid banna do-n usqui tanic a toeb [su fria cois * croind in géi co
tarla for agaid Longinus co tancatar a stile do, ar ba dall cé-sin.

Iar-sin, tra, ro-déch Longinus for Crist, 7 gabaid aithrechus mor
iarum he, co n-id ead atbert: “A Athair Inmain, A Isu, A slaniccid in
Chinedu Déenna, dena trocaire form-sa, ar is-am pecdach truag. Ar dia
no-s-faicind-sea do gniiis amal atcess do cach, ni-dat-gonfaind tria bithu.”

Ro-t-maith Dia, tra, a uli chinad * 7 peccad do Longinus * ar in aithrige-
sin, co m-ba forcetlaid amra iar-sin, 7 co tarut hil-mile do déinib docim
n-irse 7 creitme in Choimded for slicht a maigistrech. i. fsu.

Egitianus, didiu, no Zefatén indara fer béi oc in crochad is e dorat in
neim do dig do Crist, et cetera.

Translation

Now Longinus and Egitianus are’ the names of the two who were at
the crucifixion. Longinus wounded Christ through the right side and split

1 Cf. L. Br., p. 181, col. b, 1. 46— p. 188, col. a, 1. 19.

2 Cf. Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum (Antwerp, 1668), Martius II, pp. 384-386. For
a discussion of the MSS and the literary development of the story, see op. cit. pp. 375-334,
and R. J. Peebles, Legend of Longinus, Bryn Mawr College Monographs, Vol. 1X (Baltimore,
1911). Further references in U. Chevalier, Répertoire des Sources Historiques du Moyen Age.
Bio-Bibliographie (Paris, 1903-1907) II, 2852. Most similar of all to the Irish is the version
in the Legenda Aurea, ed. J. G. Th. Graesse (Dresden and Leipzig, 1846), pp. 202-203.

3 Cf. scoiltis a cride ar do. See R. Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar
Preac, p. 60.

4 Cf. K. Meyer, Contributions to Irish Lexicography (Halle, 1906), s. v. ‘coss’.

5 After uli one expects nasalization and not aspiration. For a similar exception, compart
na uli threlma (‘all the tools’) in the previous column of L. Br., p. 159, col. a, 1. 52.

6 Cf. ro-maith Dia a pheccad do. See R. Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from
Leabhar Breac, p. 60.

7 Implied by the relative form, batar.

a ss ~*~ He

Notes 103

his heart in two with the soldier’s lance which was in his hand. Thereupon
a stream of wine and a stream of water came from the side of Jesus. And
it is of them that the ablution through the body of Christ and his blood
is made in the churches of the Christians.

Now when Longinus, who was blind and featureless,! had pierced the
side of Jesus with the spear, a drop of water ran along the wooden shaft
of the lance until it fell upon Longinus’ face and his sight came to him; for
till that time he had been blind.

After this, then, Longinus looked upon Christ, and thereupon great
repentance seized him so that he spake as follows: ““O Beloved Father,
0 Jesus, O Savior of the Human Race, show mercy unto me, for I am a
woeful sinner. For, if I had seen Thy face as it has been seen by others, I
would never have wounded Thee.”

Then God forgave Longinus all his faults and his sin because of his
repentance. And afterwards he was an admirable teacher and brought
many thousands of men to the faith and the belief in the Lord, in the
footsteps of his Master, Jesus.

Now the other man who was at the crucifixion, Egitianus or Zefaton,
gave the poison ? as a drink to Christ, et cetera.

' Literally: ‘Longinus, the blind featureless man.’ Kuno Meyer cites this passage and
translates cldr-ainech as ‘flat-faced’ (Contributions to Irish Lexicography, s. v. ‘clér.’). But this
compound seems to imply that Longinus was without eyes and nose. At all events, clér-ainech
) is glossed as natus cum tabulata facie i. sine oculis et naribus in W. Stokes’ Goedelica (London,
1872), p. 144. Perhaps, however, one may translate this word as ‘leprous’; for in Broccan’s
Hymn, Brighit is said to have blessed a clér-ainech, so that ‘his eyes became visible,’ and in
the Irish notes to this passage the sufferer in question is definitely called a ‘leper,’ cf. W.
Stokes and J. Strachan, Thesaurus Paleohibernicus (Cambridge, 1903), II, 338. For the
suggestion that the disease referred to was syphilis, see C. Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum
Hiberniae, I, exi, n.

* Christ, of course, was given vinegar in order that the pain might be somewhat alle-
viated. As this was in the nature of an act of mercy, it might in this instance be permissible
to substitute ‘drug’ for ‘poison’ in order to avoid any false implication.

VernaM E. Hutt,
Bonn-am-Rhein, Germany.

104 Notes

PUBLIC RECITALS IN UNIVERSITIES OF THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY

May I call attention to two more instances, this time from the fifteenth
century, of public readings or recitals at the universities apparently apart
from the regular lecture courses, in addition to the cases of the ceremonious
readings of new works by their authors which I have previously noted from
the thirteenth century? !

An Escorial manuscript of the fifteenth century informs us that, on the
Monday immediately following Pentecost in 1444, John Alfonso of Bene.
vento, doctor of decretals and afternoon professor of the Decretum at Sala-
manca, recited a treatise on penitence before the doctors, masters, licen.
tiates, and many other scholars of the said university.2, Two other treatises
by the same John Alfonso follow in the same manuscript, but nothing is
said of their having been so recited. It should be noted that the treatise
on penance is spoken of as a repetitio, a name which rather suggests a regu-
lar academic exercise.* But the use of the word in our next example ind:
cates that this was not necessarily the case.

Even domestic science, if it did not share in the regular university
courses as it does in our own time, played its part in these extra-curricular
public readings or recitals. From Mittarelli’s eighteenth-century cats
logue ‘ of the now dispersed library of the monastery of S. Michele, Mu-
rano, near Venice, we learn that it then contained a fifteenth-century manv-
script of a Repetitio recited in the public schools of Pavia on Thursday,
February 24, 1435, by Zaninus de Martulibus who was the cook of Hugo
de Piscariis of Parma.’ The manuscript further contained other praises of
the culinary art which he recited in the chief squares of Pavia from a tr:
umphal car. These gastronomic disquisitions appear to have been cor

1 See Speculum, I (1926), 101-108.

2 Escorial MS e. I. 5, fol. 77: “Inc. tract. penitentie. . . . Istam repetitionem fecit Johanna
alfonsi de benauente decretorum doctor cathedram uesperorum decreti in studio salamantiw
regens. Et rescitauit coram doctoribus et magistris et licentiatis et aliis multis sapientibu
uniuersitatis dicti studii die lune statim post diem pentecostes. Anno domini MCCCCXLIII"

3 On its significance see Hastings Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Age
(Oxford, 1895), I, 220, 250-251.

4 Ioh. Bened. Mittarelli, Bibliotheca codicum manuscriptorum S. Michaelis Venetiarw
prope Murianum (Venice, 1779), col. 748.

5 §. Michael de Muriano Venet., MS 145: “‘Repetitio recitata in scholis publicis Papis
juris imperatorii 1435 die jovis quam pinguem et gulosam vocamus die 24 februarii.”

6 Idem, “aliae eiusdem farinae, nempe de laude artis popinariae, recitatae Papiae
plateis magnis super curru triumphali; sermo magistrandi Zanini coqui, etc.”

SS eSopru x

Wo.

Notes 105

nected with the carnival festivities preceding Lent! and may presumably be
regarded as a jocular parody upon the apparently not uncommon practice
of public recital before the university.

Lynn THORNDIKE,
Columbia University.

AN INVERTED PALIMPSEST

We often read assertions that the mediaeval monks would take precious
manuscripts of the classics, erase them in order to use the rare vellum again
and write over them some church service book or other ascetic lucubration.
It is only just to the Middle Ages to point out that sometimes the reverse
process took place. An interesting instance of this is given by A. and W. J.
Anderson in their article, ‘A Sacramentary of the Ambrosian Rite,’ Journal
of Theological Studies, XXIV (1923), 326-330. In the case of this palimpsest,
in the twelfth century the text of Cicero’s De inventione rhetoricae, lib. ii, 8;
ad Herennium lib. 4 has been written over the text of the Sacramentary
which was in Carolingian minuscule. Thus we find the classical enthusiasm
of the twelfth-century renaissance guilty of the very conduct which has
been made a reproach to monastic obscurantism. It is a good rule that
works both ways.

1 See the above allusion to ‘fat Thursday,’ still not unknown in Italy.

Lynn THORNDIKE.
Columbia University.

if
;
;

REVIEWS

W. A. Morais, The Mediaeval English Sheriff to 1300, Publications of the University of Man.
chester, CLX XVI, Historical Series XLVI. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1997,

Pp. 291.
Tue history of the English shrievalty, when treated from the purely con-
stitutional point of view, offers little ‘temptation to the mind that requires
to be tempted to the study of Truth.’ It may have, however, in perhaps
unusual measure, the ‘deep value and abiding interest’ claimed for such
somewhat austere work by the great master of English constitutional his.
tory, because of the twofold nature of the sheriff’s duties. He clearly played
an essential part, both in the growth of central government and also in the
administration of local affairs, and his historian must have therefore a
mastery of the knowledge gained by research in both fields of his activity —
a high requirement which Mr Morris meets, within the limits of time he
has set for himself, in a way that gains our respect. Covering the period
from the beginnings of the office through the reign of Edward I, he leaves
the ‘readjustment of the fourteenth century’ and the ‘decline and fall’ for
students of later times.

With regard to the problem of origins, Mr Morris agrees with Lieber-
mann and Chadwick that the shire was not a primitive tribal institution,
but rather a subdivision of a kingdom, following in point of time earlier ad-
ministrative divisions drawn round king’s tun or, later, burh. The appear.
ance of shire and hundred, and the codrdinate differentiation of the shire
reeve from among other king’s reeves, took place, he believes, in the time
of Edgar, as part of the movement towards centralization of the tenth cen-
tury. The old dualism of government, which Stubbs portrays, between the
alderman as representing local interests and the sheriff as steward of royal
rights, necessarily falls to the ground before this view, which regards the
sheriff as exercising powers in part delegated to him by the alderman.

The history of the post-Conquest shrievalty Mr Morris divides helpfully
into certain well-marked periods, corresponding with, and dependent upon,
the great constitutional changes in the central government. He differer-
tiates the period of the great baronial sheriff of the Norman kings from the
period of central control under Henry I, when, after Tinchebrai, the barons
in office were largely replaced by the king’s ‘new men,’ and machinery was
introduced to make the sheriff a responsible officer. He shows the con
tinued existence of the institution under Stephen, not accepting Stubbs’
interpretation of the anarchy of that reign. He describes the period d
‘institutional absolutism,’ culminating under John, of which the sheriff was

106

H. A. |
Ir is ;

grado

Reviews 107

chief local agent; and shows finally how the office was, in the last period he
discusses, gradually subordinated to the fixed rules of Exchequer, Chancery,
judiciary, and other governmental organs. Under each of these periods in
turn he gives an account of the functions of the sheriff, judicial, fiscal, mili-
tary, and general, a method which sometimes entails a little confusion and
repetition. He reserves, however, a full account of the sheriff’s duties as
they were about 1300 for the chapters at the end of the book, chapters
which, in their careful enumeration of the amazing number of activities in
which the sheriff was engaged, are perhaps the most valuable in the book.
A little more classification of material would sometimes guide the reader
more clearly through the intricacies of the subject.

The student of early English institutions will perhaps be a little disap-
pointed, if disappointment be not ungracious where there is so much that is
valuable and helpful, that Mr Morris has confined himself so rigorously to
material dealing directly with the sheriff, that he has gone so little afield
into the legal and economic sources that would necessarily throw light on
some of the very interesting and important subjects on which he touches.
One would wish, for example, for a fuller discussion, based in part on local
records, of the very living question of the relation of the sheriff and the
local courts to the maintenance of ancient custom on one hand, and, on the
other, to the newer rules of the common law as enforced by the king’s jus-
tices and king’s courts. One wonders whether a study of economic material
would quite justify the restriction of redditus assisae to survivals of the
ancient feorm, and whether the subject of the local payments made to the
sheriff is adequately treated. Sometimes the larger constitutional aspects
are a little lost to view in the great mass of detail — ill as any of it could
be spared — whieh Mr Morris has collected. It must be recognized, how-
ever, that a work which covers so long a period of time, and touches on so
many and so various constitutional problems, must necessarily have as its
object not so much new interpretations, or the collection of material en-
tirely new, as the orderly presentation of facts, references to which lie scat-
tered in many miscellaneous and difficult places, in material printed and
unprinted. It is this object which Mr Morris has achieved with admirable
accuracy and carefulness. One wishes, however, that to a work of reference

of this kind a fuller index had been added.
N. NEILson,
Mount Holyoke College.

H. A. L. Fisner, Paul Vinogradoff, A Memoir. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927.
It is not often that one field of knowledge can claim within a half century

three such mighty and attractive figures as Stubbs, Maitland, and Vino-
gradoff. ““There were giants in the earth in those days.” To those who

108 Reviews

loved and revered Sir Paul Vinogradoff Mr Fisher’s distinguished memoir
will bring satisfaction. It is written with much sympathetic understanding
and evident appreciation of the power and extraordinary gifts of the great
scholar with whom it deals, and presents admirably many sides of a many-
sided nature. The account of Sir Paul’s life in Russia is perhaps especially
interesting to those who knew him only in his adopted country, but could
estimate somewhat the darkness of the shadow that the outcome of the
revolution cast over his later years. Mr Fisher describes excellently his
boyhood, the years of patient and continuous research, the work for popu-
lar education, the crowded lecture room, and the final break from the Uni-
versity of Moscow —“‘the departing of a great teacher, who, though long
the chief intellectual glory of the university, was now compelled to lay
down his office and to go into exile as a protest against the humiliations
which his University was compelled to undergo at the hands of an unintel-
ligent despotism.” In sharp contrast with the intensity of his feeling for
Russia was Sir Paul’s citizenship of the world, his ease of intercourse with
men of all countries. His biographer likens him to “one of the great medi-
aeval doctors, the fame of whose teaching went through the civilized
world,” quoting the statement of a distinguished Belgian that he was “the
best known figure in the learned world of the continent.”

To Sir Paul’s work in early English legal history Mr Fisher gives due
honor, and most students of the period will agree with his dictum that the
greatest of the great trilogy of volumes produced in this field is Villainage
in England — the book which in its completeness and suggestiveness is at
once our despair and our admiration. The works in comparative law were
interrupted by his death. While there is an amazing number of articles
and addresses, and two great volumes completed of the Historical Jurs-
prudence, nothing can console mediaevalists, or compensate them, for the
loss of almost all the volume on mediaeval feudal society and the relations
of church and state. A bibliography compiled by Lady Vinogradoff wil
some time give us the complete list of all that he wrote in the many lar-
guages he had made his own.

Another phase of his work mentioned by Mr Fisher, his encouragement
of others and the school of research which he established, can be appre
ciated best by those who were fortunate enough to be his students, to
whom his passing means the loss of a great inspiration. Power was prob-
ably, as Mr Fisher says, the dominant impression he conveyed, but to
those who knew him well the “serious, sledge hammer” aspect of power of
which the writer of the memoir speaks was modified essentially by the
quick turn in human intercourse, the generous sympathy, the appreciation,
based on deep knowledge, of the zsthetic values in art, music, and litera
ture. We may well apply to him the words of his own beautiful memorial

Reviews 109

to Maitland: “King Death has touched with his wand one of the most . . .
profound thinkers of our time, and stores of patiently accumulated know-
ledge, marvellous designs of a creative intellect, have disappeared forever
from this world of ours.”
N. NEILson,
Mount Holyoke College.

f
| Heren WapDELL, The Wandering Scholars, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. Pp. xxviii, 292.

' In her study of the Vagantes Miss Waddell develops little more than a
scaffolding of her subject. The book was begun as an introduction to a book
of translations from Mediaeval Latin lyric soon to be published, and out-
grew her original intention without outgrowing its limitations. For ex-
ample, the historical interest of the Vagantes as an earliest disintegrating
force in the mediaeval church is left on one side; with it, their place in
literary history, in the development of satire and the secularization of the
stage remains untouched. Miss Waddell has studied her scholars only as
the inheritors of pagan learning, that classical tradition which came to its
wild flowering in the rhyming Latin lyric of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.

If we judge the author’s work, then, only as a prelude to a forthcoming
book of English verse renderings, we must pay it the highest praise possible
and dub it a more brilliant performance than the famous essay of John
Addington Symonds, or than any of the twenty essays which interpret and
render mediaeval Latin student songs in the French, German, and Italian
manner. For Miss Waddell knows her Latin impeccably and in her best
moods transmutes it into English verse with an astonishing regard for color
shades and tonal values; what is more, on occasion she can talk with the
abandon of a depressed Swinburne or a stimulated Savage Landor. Up to
this point her enraptured reader hopes that at least ten thousand amateurs
shall be born to welcome future editions of this impishly engaging work,
whose verve and charm thrust forth from every page.

But alack and alas! with all winds blowing fair for her and with none
to deny her highest claim to distinction in her chosen task, Miss Waddell
deliberately marks down her genial writing for review in SpEcuULUM by
according it scholastic dress, by interlarding it with grave remarks about
places and people, that are not consonant with modern knowledge, and by
devoting well on toward half the total space of her book to inapposite
footnotes, illustrations, appendices, and bibliography. And therefore she
must be reminded that the most delightful chatter, the most gorgeous
guesswork, are not scholarship; that the very genius of her writing negates
its appealing to a crowd of specialists interested in the sane adjudgment of
the relationship that Mediaeval Latin poetry bears to the vernaculars.

108 Reviews

loved and revered Sir Paul Vinogradoff Mr Fisher’s distinguished memoir
will bring satisfaction. It is written with much sympathetic understanding
and evident appreciation of the power and extraordinary gifts of the great
scholar with whom it deals, and presents admirably many sides of a many-
sided nature. The account of Sir Paul’s life in Russia is perhaps especially
interesting to those who knew him only in his adopted country, but could
estimate somewhat the darkness of the shadow that the outcome of the
revolution cast over his later years. Mr Fisher describes excellently his
boyhood, the years of patient and continuous research, the work for popu-
lar education, the crowded lecture room, and the final break from the Uni-
versity of Moscow —“the departing of a great teacher, who, though long
the chief intellectual glory of the university, was now compelled to lay
down his office and to go into exile as a protest against the humiliations
which his University was compelled to undergo at the hands of an unintel-
ligent despotism.” In sharp contrast with the intensity of his feeling for
Russia was Sir Paul’s citizenship of the world, his ease of intercourse with
men of all countries. His biographer likens him to “one of the great medi-
aeval doctors, the fame of whose teaching went through the civilized
world,” quoting the statement of a distinguished Belgian that he was “the
best known figure in the learned world of the continent.”

To Sir Paul’s work in early English legal history Mr Fisher gives due
honor, and most students of the period will agree with his dictum that the
greatest of the great trilogy of volumes produced in this field is Villainage
in England — the book which in its completeness and suggestiveness is at
once our despair and our admiration. The works in comparative law were
interrupted by his death. While there is an amazing number of articles
and addresses, and two great volumes completed of the Historical Jurv-
prudence, nothing can console mediaevalists, or compensate them, for the
loss of almost all the volume on mediaeval feudal society and the relations
of church and state. A bibliography compiled by Lady Vinogradoff will
some time give us the complete list of all that he wrote in the many lan-
guages he had made his own.

Another phase of his work mentioned by Mr Fisher, his encouragement
of others and the school of research which he established, can be appre
ciated best by those who were fortunate enough to be his students, to
whom his passing means the loss of a great inspiration. Power was prob
ably, as Mr Fisher says, the dominant impression he conveyed, but to
those who knew him well the “serious, sledge hammer” aspect of power o
which the writer of the memoir speaks was modified essentially by the
quick turn in human intercourse, the generous sympathy, the appreciation,
based on deep knowledge, of the sesthetic values in art, music, and liters
ture. We may well apply to him the words of his own beautiful memorial

}

Reviews 109

from this world of ours.”
N. NEILSOoN,
Mount Holyoke College.

HeLen WapveE.i, The Wandering Scholars, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. Pp. xxviii, 292.

In her study of the Vagantes Miss Waddell develops little more than a
scaffolding of her subject. The book was begun as an introduction to a book
of translations from Mediaeval Latin lyric soon to be published, and out-
grew her original intention without outgrowing its limitations. For ex-
ample, the historical interest of the Vagantes as an earliest disintegrating
force in the mediaeval church is left on one side; with it, their place in
literary history, in the development of satire and the secularization of the
stage remains untouched. Miss Waddell has studied her scholars only as
the inheritors of pagan learning, that classical tradition which came to its
wild flowering in the rhyming Latin lyric of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.

But alack and alas! with all winds blowing fair for her and with none
to deny her highest claim to distinction in her chosen task, Miss Waddell
deliberately marks down her genial writing for review in SpEcULUM by
according it scholastic dress, by interlarding it with grave remarks about
places and people, that are not consonant with modern knowledge, and by
devoting well on toward half the total space of her book to inapposite
footnotes, illustrations, appendices, and bibliography. And therefore she
must be reminded that the most delightful chatter, the most gorgeous
guesswork, are not scholarship; that the very genius of her writing negates
its appealing to a crowd of specialists interested in the sane adjudgment of
the relationship that Mediaeval Latin poetry bears to the vernaculars.

110 Reviews

In almost every paragraph of the Wandering Scholars Miss Waddell
roams the world over for analogues and allusive coincidences in theme,
She plunders the field of a dozen dialects, and nose-dives through the cen-
turies in her search for associative material with which to decorate her
simple picture; joining together what the god of reticence has thus far
decreed should be kept asunder. And, worst of all crimes to your scholarly
person, she has jazzed the Middle Ages. I cannot apologize for this phrase—
it is purely descriptive; for evidence I cite the book, passim. How else than
by using ‘jazz’ can I characterize Prudentius’s Luxuria being made ‘the
hot whore’ of Marlowe? How indicate dismay at the identification of
Ausonius with ‘half-a-dozen provincial Chinese governors’? How explain
my yawn at the fitting together of the Archpoet’s lines with Don Juan,
I Pagliacci, and Iolanthe, and at his being called Gilbert and Sullivan
rolled into one? How otherwise object to the frenchification of Roswitha,
an author on whose gnarled lines Winterfeld sensed but the spray of the
North Sea? Saxophones for a thousand years of Latin poetry. The history
of Latin song punctuated by syncopation, blue-notes, and the wistful wail-
ing of barber-shop harmonies. This is comparative literature with a ven-
geance, in the very best manner of George Saintsbury, W. P. Ker, and
Gregory Smith.

P. S. ALLEN,
University of Chicago.

Sir H. C. Maxweut-Lyte, Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England, London:
His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1926. Pp. ix, 460. 18 shillings.

Tuose of us who are interested in mediaeval England have welcomed the
appearance year after year of the volumes of calendars of the letters and
writs issued under the Great Seal. These calendars were begun in 1891,
under the direction of the writer of the present volume, Sir Henry C. Max-
well-Lyte, then the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. After many
years of service, he resigned his office toward the close of the year 1926,
and at about the same time his Notes on the Use of the Great Seal appeared.
The book bears witness to his long and intimate acquaintance with the
records of the Chancery.

The volume contains an ample and, for the most part, very clear descrip-
tion of the stages in Chancery procedure that resulted ultimately in the
issuance of various types of instruments sealed with the Great Seal. In the
preface the author disclaims any intention of writing a ‘constitutional his-
tory’ of the Chancery. Since he has taken as his special province the
methods of the ‘administrative Chancery,’ there is no discussion of the
Chancery as a court or of the Chancellor as a judicial official. Within the

iting
of t!

Reviews 111

limits thus described there is a full account of procedure illustrated by
means of numerous quotations from documents. It may be well to add that
the Notes cover the modern as well as the mediaeval Chancery, though the
latter, as laying a foundation for the former, receives the greater amount
of attention. The author’s known interest in the Middle Ages may not be
overlooked in the same connection.

The solution of the problem of handling an intricate subject is excellent,
though it does involve a certain amount of overlapping. Ignore the con-
ventional division into ten chapters, and four parts stand out clearly. The
first, in chapter I, contains a description of the staff of the Chancery and of
the places where it met. It is all too brief. Part two is covered by chapters
II to VIII inclusive. In it there is a full discussion of the warrants upon the
basis of which letters under the Great Seal were issued and also of the
antecedents of such warrants. The third part is found in chapter IX, which
is a detailed exposition of Chancery practice in the drafting, dating, en-
grossing, sealing, and enrolment of instruments issued under the Great
Seal. In this chapter is an interesting discussion of fees. The fourth part,
chapter X, contains a brief discussion of the records of the Chancery. Two
appendices and two indices, that of subjects being rather unsatisfactory,
bring to a close a noteworthy volume and one that opens up a field neg-
lected in the past.

There are many points in the book that will be of interest to all who use
the calendars of letters sent out by the Chancery and to those who are
working with Chancery warrants. One point of great importance is the
fact that not all Letters Patent and Close were enrolled on the Patent and
Close Rolls by the Chancery officers. A number of examples of such omis-
sions are given on pages 363 and following. I am able to verify this by
personal experience, for, having proceeded on the assumption that all royal
letters of importance relating to taxes were entered cn the Chancery Rolls,
I discovered to my dismay that many such letters which appeared on the
Memoranda Rolls were not so entered.

Another disquieting fact brought out by the author is that the indica-
tions of time and place in Letters Patent and Close, from the early four-
teenth century to the end of the year 1439, are not what they seem to be.
The date at the end of writs of the Privy Seal used as warrants for letters
under the Great Seal, during the period noted, ‘usually governed the date
of the final instrument to be issued under the Great Seal’ (p. 71; compare
pages 243, 251). There are even exceptions to this general rule (p. 249).
The indications of place in the Chancery letters are even more unreliable.
Such information, therefore, may not be used for the reconstruction of the
itinerary of either a fourteenth-century king or his household. The tables
of the itineraries of the royal household, Privy Seal and Chancery in 1333,

112 Reviews

given in Appendix A, will deter anyone from using this material on the
Chancery Rolls without the greatest care.

There is much information of an illuminating character in the volume,
and it is consequently a very valuable piece of work. That it is at times
difficult reading is a minor fault, for the subject-matter does not lend itself
to sprightly discussion. I wish, however, that the author had given an
explanation of mediaeval usage with respect to the terms letter and writ.
On pages 304-305 the two seem to be distinguished on the basis that Let-
ters Close were writs and Letters Patent were letters. Yet on page 329
there are quotations from the accounts of the Keeper of the Hanaper show-
ing that he did not observe this distinction; and the author refers to ‘the
familiar classification of instruments issued out of the Chancery as Writs,
Letters Close, Letters Patent or Charters.’ In the records with which I am
most familiar, those of the Exchequer, Letters Close were normally writs

and Letters Patent were letters. —

University of Colorado.

Narpus Groen, Lexicon Anthimeum. University of Amsterdam diss., Amsterdam: H. J.

Paris, 1926. Pp. 103.

Arter a brief discussion of the editions of Anthimus and the place of the
language of his treatise in the development of Latin, there follows an out-
line of the method of the compiler of the lexicon. In general, the method
of Merguet and Gerber and Graef is followed; certain constantly recurring
words are omitted. The orthography of Rose’s edition (Leipzig, 1877) is
used. There is a list of the known MSS, which includes one not known to
the reviewer in his edition and commentary (Brill: Leyden, 1924).

The compiler makes no effort to define the words, but simply quotes the
passages. The work has been carefully done, is handsomely printed, and
writer and printer alike are to be complimented on their excellent proof-
reading. It will prove a useful adjunct to scholars who are making similar
studies in Vulgar, or Mediaeval Latin, if it does no more than to point out

to them what phenomena to look for. —

Princeton University.

Austin Hepiry Brrcx, A Comparison of the Styles of Gaudentius of Brescia, the De Sacra-
mentis, and the Didascalia Apostolorum or Fragmenta Veronensia. University of London
diss., Risca, Monmouthshire: Yendall & Co., 1924. Pp. 180.

Mk Bircu has made a study of the style and language of three works which

emanated from the district between Milan and Verona during the first half

of the fifth century, namely twenty-one sermons of Gaudentius, the De

Sacramentis, formerly ascribed to St Ambrose, and the Verona fragment

deciphered some twenty years ago by E. Hauler, the Didascalia A posto-

sti
sti
th
Ita
vel

dra
sho
is 0

Lat
inte

Reviews 113

lorum. A careful search has been made for affinities and differences in the
styles of the three writings — just why, is not quite clear, for there is little
doubt as to their place of origin, and no question of a common authorship.
During a painstaking investigation the writer has brought out, by implica-
tion rather than by direct statement, that the education of Gaudentius was
superior to that of the other writers. The use of the term ‘vulgar Latin’
which involves a perilous distinction at this period, has been carefully
avoided; however, a comparison with the language of the so-called Mulo-
medicina Chironis (Leipzig: Oder, 1901) would have shown that the author
of the Didascalia follows ignorant usage rather than that of the Church
Latin which from time to time raised itself above the common speech by
harking back to the classical tongue in the writings of the more educated
Church Fathers.

As it stands, the dissertation points out differences of style and gram-
mar, but avoids drawing conclusions, and thus some of its value is lost.
But the peculiarities which are brought to light are interesting, and of great
value to the student of mediaeval latinity. Acceptable to the student of the
pre-Hieronymian version of the Scriptures is the section in which the pas-
sages quoted by the three writers are set off in columns against the corre-
sponding passages in the Vulgate. In view of the great number of passages
that differ, it seems to the reviewer pertinent to note whether any passages
are quoted directly from the Vulgate, and, if possible, to determine to what
extent the Vulgate circulated in that part of Italy at this time. Apparently
the introduction and circulation of the translation were slow.

The commentary on peculiar words and usages is stimulating to the
student of language. A valuable addition to the work would be a demon-
stration of the foreshadowing of Romance words and constructions; e.g.,
the nouns in —-or mentioned on page 160 have undoubtedly given rise to the
great preference for nouns and adjectives in —eur in French, and in —ore in
Italian; the Romance future is clearly foreshadowed in venire habes and
videre habes quoted on page 160. These are excellent illustrations; for the
verb and auxiliary are taking the word-order that is to remain fixed (vien-
dras, verras, etc.) in Romance.

In passing, the writer establishes the authorship of Tractate xxi by
showing that it contains many of the peculiarities of Gaudentius’s other
writings.

Though marred by typographical errors and inconsistencies, the work
is on the whole a valuable contribution to our fund of knowledge of the
Latin of the transitional period of the language, and contains points of
interest that will stir other students to similar inquiries.

SurrLtey H. WEBER,
Princeton University.

114 Reviews

Water Curve Corry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1926. Pp. xxii, 267.

‘Proressor Curry’s book presents in a single attractive volume a series
of essays which have already appeared at intervals during the past eight
years in several different journals. Professed Chaucerians, who already
know these important discussions, will be glad to have them in a collected
edition; and this new form should insure for them a much wider audience
among those who are interested in things mediaeval. The essays stand
substantially as they have previously appeared, except that the author
has wisely translated or paraphrased into English most of his frequent
citations from the Latin writings of mediaeval scientists, and has drawn
figures of the heaven to illustrate the horoscopes. Mr Curry has also modi-
fied some of his earlier opinions as to the way in which Chaucer’s extensive
acquaintance with the mediaeval sciences enters into the creative processes
of the poetic artist. He no longer maintains, for example, that the Wife of
Bath was created from her horoscope, recognizing that such a method
would have produced an ingenious mechanical dummy rather than a com-
plex and vivid human being. The only portion of the book which is new
is a brief introduction.

By his explorations, much more extensive and systematic than any
which have been made before, into the scientific lore of Chaucer’s writings,
Mr Curry has rendered a valuable service to Chaucerian scholarship, and
has furthered the cause, dear to the readers of SpecuLuM, of making clearer
the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. No one after reading this book
can fail to recognize the extent of Chaucer’s scientific interest, and his ac-
curate and detailed mastery of the best opinion of his day in astronomy
and astrology, in the theory of dreams, in physiology and therapeutics.
He was not, like Shakespeare, content with such knowledge as an eager
mind could gather in from the hearsay of conversation and desultory
reading; he is instead a ‘learned’ poet, in the same kind, if not to the same
degree, as Dante and Milton.

And Mr Curry has shown himself a learned commentator. His task
has been a difficult one, which has required not only patience but insight.
The writer of this review has had occasion to meddle with the art of astrol-
ogy sufficiently to know how baffling are its intricacies, and with what
difficulty they can be unraveled from out the jargon of strange terms used
with scant explication by writers who were addressing themselves to readers
already initiate to the mystery.

That in a book of this sort there should be some errors is inevitable;
and it is the ungracious duty of the reviewer to point out those which he
happens to be able to correct. Mr Curry has not always controlled the

‘el

had i

| have

Phys;
injury
influe

Reviews 115

bibliography of obscure writers with whom he has had to deal. The name
of an Arabian philosopher which appears as ‘Rhazes’ on p. 7 is thereafter
given the preferable form ‘Rasis.’ Julius Firmicus Maternus is regularly
referred to as ‘Maternus’ rather than by the more usual ‘Firmicus.’
Bartholomaeus Anglicus is so designated on p. 60; but on pp. 39, 42 he
appears as Bartholomaeus de Glanvilla, a designation formerly given to
him by error. The date of his De Proprietatibus Rerum is not 1366 (p. 150)
but some hundred and fifty years earlier. On p. 151 the author has con-
fused Batman’s commentary on Bartholomaeus (published 1582) with
John of Trevisa’s translation of 1398.

One of Mr Curry’s best achievements is his interpretation of the astro-
logical data.given in the Man of Law’s Tale, a passage on which Skeat’s
notes are insufficient and in several details mistaken. But I cannot under-
stand why this horoscope, which gives the planetary positions at the time
when Constance begins her unhappy travels, is treated by Mr Curry as
that of the heroine’s nativity. It is plainly not a ‘nativity’ but an ‘elec-
tion.’ It is quite true, as he says, that for the full interpretation of an
‘election’, the astrologer should study it in relation to the subject’s ‘na-
tivity’; but there is no reason why the configuration of the heavens which
existed at the time of Constance’s journey should have resembled closely
that which marked her birth. Nor does Chaucer say anything which can
be interpreted into such an assertion. It is, as an assumption, quite a need-
less one; for the constellation under which Constance sets out on her journey
determines her entire experience.

I think also that Mr Curry is making a needless and an unwarranted
assumption when in the horoscope of the Wife of Bath he asserts a con-
junction of Venus and Mars in the ascendent Taurus. The good woman
herself merely says that ‘Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars thereinne.’
The only basis for the assumption that Venus also was in the sign Taurus
is found in the Wife’s assertion that she had ‘the prente of seynt Venus
seel’ (which need only mean that the influence of Venus has left its mark
on her character) and that she is ‘al Venerien in feling.’ But, as Mr Curry
clearly states, Taurus is the ‘house’ of Venus, and the ascendency of this
sign is in itself sufficient to make her ‘Venerien,’ while the presence in this
sign of the malefic Mars is enough to establish the tragic conflict of astral
influences on which Mr Curry rightly insists in his discussion. If Chaucer
had intended a conjunction of Venus with Mars in Taurus, he would surely
| have said so in plainer terms.

Particularly illuminating is the discussion of Chaucer’s Doctor of
Physic and his therapeutic methods; and the diagnosis of Arcite’s fatal
injury in the Knight’s Tale and the part played in his death by the hostile
influence of Saturn is a triumph of scholarly insight. One is less convinced

116 Reviews

by the author’s contention that the two champions, Emetreus and Lycurgus,
are in their physical attributes types of the Martian and Saturnine (Mr
Curry says ‘Saturnalian’) complections. Chaucer has given no indication
of such an intention. In general, I find the discussions of physiognomy,
as for example of the Reeve and the Miller, less satisfactory than the rest
of the book. Mediaeval physiognomy was a much less exact science than
astrology, and from it almost anything could be proved. That the physical
appearance of the Miller and the Reeve is in a general way intended to he
indicative of their characters as coarse churls no one will deny. But again
we have the right to expect that Chaucer should have pointed the way, had
he wished us to find a particular trait of character in every physical detail,
The volume ends with an exposition of mediaeval dream-lore which, within
its limits, is in every way admirable.

Mr Curry’s book is an excellent commentary on certain important
passages of the Canterbury Tales which without such exposition are mean-
ingless to most modern readers. It is also a good introduction for anyone
who wishes to learn how the scientific — or pseudo-scientific — thought of
the Middle Ages colored the intellectual life of such a man as Geoffrey
Chaucer. Its errors are not frequent, and usually do not invalidate the
conclusions. We are indebted to Mr Curry for a very significant and in-

teresting study.
Rosert K. Root,

Princeton University.

Joser Batocu, Voces Paginarum: Beitrdge zur Geschichte des lauten Lesens und Schreiben.
Leipzig: Dieterich, 1927. (Reprinted from Philologus, LXXXII,1 and 2). Pp. 66. Price

Rm. 2.60.

Aut classical scholars know the importance of the living voice in ancient
literature. For centuries all Greek literature was written for oral delivery
of some kind; indeed, as Wilamowitz-Moellendorf insisted in his introduc.
tion to the Hercules Furens, the texts of the Greek tragedies were perhaps
the first books to be published for the benefit of a reading public, and it was
hardly before the Alexandrian age that the habit of reading can be said to
have become general. In Roman times the custom of giving semi-publi
readings of new works was already in vogue before the Christian era. The
influence of all this on literary style — in accentuating the tendency to
rhetoric — was far-reaching, and is well known to scholars. But it was
not till the publication of Norden’s Antike Kunstprosa that scholars became
familiar with the fact that the ancients even in private habitually read
aloud — even to themselves (so that the ‘convention’ of reading letters
aloud in comedy was after all based on fact). In the first edition (1898)
this was illustrated by one passage only — Aug., Conf., 6. 3, pointed out by

Reviews 117

Otto Seeck. In the third edition (1915) Norden and his correspondents
had increased the number of passages to about a dozen, of which the most
familiar, and most striking, is Acts viii, 26 ff.

The present work goes into the whole matter, and illustrates it with some
30 examples (with comments), including one from the Talmud and one
from the Syriac poet, Isaac of Antioch. Others are Hor., Sat., i, 3, 63 ff.;
i, 6, 122 ff.; ii, 5, 66 ff.; Aristaenetus i, 10 (Acontius and Cydippe);
Priap. 68; Hdt. i, 48; Greg. Naz. in Bas. Epitaph. \vii, 1; Or. vi, 18. We
also learn that in writing, too, the writer spoke the words aloud (Theodoret,
Graecar. Affect. Curatio, i, 29): compare the interesting explanation of
Luke i, 63 — in writing, Zacharias spoke the words: while silent prayer was
considered suspicious (Mart. i, 39. 6; Mayor on Juv. 10, 289-90; S. Sudhaus
in Archiv f. Relig.-Wiss. IX, 190 ff.). The moral of it all is that if we would
truly appreciate ancient literature, we must read it aloud (the reviewer
may be allowed to say that he has found this most efficacious in teaching
Greek and Latin composition). It is significant to find that long before
professed scholars had noticed this important phenomenon, it had been
remarked on by two men of genius who happened also to be excellent
classical scholars, Wieland in his translation of Lucian, adv. Ind. 2, and
Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Bose, 247.

Whether the custom of reading aloud in private continued in the Middle
Ages does not appear clearly from the passages quoted by Balogh; some
seem to refer to the reading of the Bible to an assembly, in church or monas-
| tery, while others which refer to the ‘ear’ of the reader, or the ‘sound’
of the written word, may well be crystallizations of ancient metaphor.
But the obscure passages quoted from the lives of St Francis seem to bring
us up to the twelfth century (cf. Jakob v. Vitry, Exempla, No. 47, ed.
Greven, Heidelberg: Winter, 1914).

The reason for the discontinuance of the custom was partly that reading
aloud is inconsistent with much thought, and partly its impracticability in
monasteries (Reg. Bened. xlviii, 12). (Surely the Romans must have read
silently in public libraries.) The latest passage quoted, Grimmelshausen’s
Simplicissimus, I, 16, proves that the custom still survived among the half-
educated in 1670. The author concludes with modern instances of reading
aloud by people with an ear for a well-turned phrase. Altogether the little
book is an important contribution to our understanding of ancient liter-

ature.
W. B. Sepewick,
Leicester, England.

118 Reviews

B. D. Brown, A Study of the Southern Passion, Bryn Mawr diss., Oxford: John Johnson,

1926. Pp. 111.

Mrs Brown’s monograph is the introduction to the text of the late thir.
teenth-century Southern Passion, which she is to edit for the Early English
Text Society. As we have come to expect of Bryn Mawr dissertations on
Middle English subjects, it is a thorough and judicious work, based ona
careful study of the manuscripts. The Southern Passion, a poem dealing
with the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, is found in numerous manv-
scripts of the South English Legendary, and was probably written to form
part of that sequence of poems. Mrs Brown points out notable similarities
between the style of the Passion and that of the Legendary, which make
common authorship the most reasonable assumption. Though the validity
of Mrs Brown’s conclusions on the sources can hardly be tested until the
publication of the text, she appears to make out a good case for the depen-
dence of the Southern Passion on the Vulgate, Peter Comestor’s Historia
Scholastica, and the Meditationes Vitae Christi, sometimes ascribed to St
Bonaventura. It is of general interest to mediaevalists that Bonaventura’s
authorship of the Meditationes, which has been widely questioned in recent
years, is likely to receive new support, if Mrs Brown’s contention that it is
early enough to have influenced the Southern Passion is accepted. The
exact purpose of the compilation of the Southern Passion is hard to deter.
mine. Mrs Brown is inclined to think, because of the poet’s attitude towan
the Church and society, that the poem is the product of one of the mer-
dicant orders, probably the Dominican.

Two important chapters are that on the relation of the manuscripts,
and that on their provenience and dialect. Most dissertations that grow
into books wait years for publication, and from the defects that a lapse o/
ten years is likely to engender Mrs Brown’s monograph is not exempt
Thus in the chapter on dialect, on which much important work has bee
done in the last decade, the author has unfortunately based her dialectal
criteria on Kaluza and Morsbach, rather than on Luick and Wyld. Tle
statement about the development of mutated long and short OE. y (fo
which, by the way, the ambiguous designation u, i, y, 7, is used) is inexad
and leads to uncertainties in the discussion of the individual manuscripts
Thus, the definite Western element in the Vernon MS. (OE a > o befor
nasal; OE. mutated y > u;-u- in unstressed final syllables) is not noted
(p. 44); nor is the Eastern element (OE. y > e) in the Trinity MS. (p. 47)
When Mrs Brown makes her own comparisons of dialectal characteristics
as in the case of MS. Harley 2277 (p. 38), she is on safer ground than whet
she adheres to her authorities. The earliest manuscripts are Southwester.
Various bits of evidence are pointed out which indicate that the Legenday
was originally written in Somerset rather than in Gloucester, as has bee

the

suc
of |

F gen

and

to tl
in de
seen
of B
whic:
work
latter
icono
later ;

pletes
rative

In
early }

Reviews 119

too readily assumed. A possible objection that the South English Legendary
is likely to have emanated from Gloucester, because of a complicated theory
of its relation to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, Mrs Brown has already
anticipated by showing that Robert is the borrower from the Life of St
Kenelm included in the Legendary (Mod. Lang. Notes, XLI [1926], 13-23).
This introductory study, which is rich in parallels illustrative of the
legendary material embodied in the Southern Passion, is of interest to the
general student of mediaeval legend, as well as to the specialist in Middle
English. Rosert J. MENNER,
Yale University.

Henrik Cornet, Biblia Pauperum. Stockholm: Thule, 1925. Pp. xv, 372.

Tue complete publication of the material for the study of the Biblia Pau-
perum such as appears in this volume is indeed a boon to students of Mediae-
val art and iconography. For in these bibles we find compacted for the first
time the typological representations of New Testament scenes. Prior to
their appearance separate scenes or groups of scenes had been represented
with their typological accompaniments, but in the Biblia Pauperum the
entire book is made up of scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin and
treated in typological fashion. And they gave rise to other similar works
such as the Speculum Humanae Saluationis, or the Concordantiae Caritatis
of Ulrich von Lilienfeld.

The author following in general the lead of Schreiber distinguishes five

} general types according to the page arrangement of the scenes, prophets,
and tituli, and then arranges the manuscripts into eight groups according
to the choice and sequence of the scenes. He takes these eight groups up
in detail and follows them with a general discussion of the use of typological
scenes prior to the Biblia Pauperum. The development of the various types
of Biblia Pauperum is then taken up beginning with the Bavarian group,
which appears to be the oldest. He notes their influence on other typological
works such as the Speculum Humanae Saluationis, and also shows how the
latter in turn influences the later groups of the Biblia. The discussion of the
iconographic influence of the Biblia Pawperum on other contemporary and
later monuments is also of importance. A chapter on the style of the minia-
tures and a description of the separate scenes illustrated in the bibles com-
pletes the work. In an appendix he publishes the text of the German nar-
tative type.

In his discussion of the general development of typological scenes in the
early Middle Ages, the author remarks that there seems to be a hiatus in
the occurrence of such scenes between the seventh and eleventh centuries,
the Carolingian examples being rather sporadic. It seems to me that he
has overlooked there a whole category of biblical illustration in which

120 Reviews

typology played a very important réle and which may be responsible for
its preservation and development, at least in some degree, during that
time. I mean psalter illustration. It is true that the typological represen.
tations work in the reverse direction in the psalters, that is, New Testament
scenes are used to carry out or parallel the meaning of the Old Testament
text. But the typological connection and purpose is there just the same.
And it evidently has some connection with the later illustration of the
Biblia Pauperum. For instance, the passage in Psalm Ixxi, descendit sicut
pluuia in uellus, is illustrated in the Psalters by a representation of the
Annunciation to the Virgin. In the same psalm the passage, reges Tharsis
et insulae munera offerent, is illustrated by the Adoration of the Magi. And
in the Biblia Pauperum, among the four prophets which surround the scenes
of the Annunciation and the Adoration is David holding a scroll upon whieh
is written the respective text passage from Psalm Ixxi, which I have cited
as illustrated in the Psalters. I also wonder why, in his discussion of the
prophets which accompany the New Testament scenes in the Biblia Pav
perum, he does not mention the early occurrence of these figures in the
scenes in the Codex Rossanensis.

These matters are, however, minor criticisms of the book which i
carried out in an eminently scholarly fashion and which makes a definite
contribution to the history of mediaeval illumination.

Ernest T. DeEWa_p,
Princeton University.

V. H. Gataratrn, ed., The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333 to 1381, from a MS. written at St Many:
Abbey, York, and now in the Possession of Lieut.-Col. Sir William Ingilby, Bart., Ripla
Castle, Yorkshire, Publications of the University of Manchester CLXXV, Historicd
Series XLV, New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1927. Pp. xlix, 216.

TuE chronicle is published from a unique manuscript which is practically

a new discovery. It was used by Stow, but appears subsequently to have

passed from the knowledge of historians. Small portions of the chroniek

have been published previously from transcripts preserved among Stow!
papers. The part dealing with the Peasants’ Revolt was printed by Pr
fessor Trevelyan (Eng. Hist. Rev., XIII, 1898, 509-522), and English trans
lations of extracts from the section devoted to the Good Parliament aml
associated events were edited by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson in th

introduction to Chronicon Angliae, 1328-1388 (London, 1874, pp. lxvi

Ixxxiii). The original text corrects the erratic orthography of the forme

and several small errors in both transcriptions.

The work is a compilation. The manuscript, which the editor deem
the original, was written by three different hands probably at two differed
times. It was probably completed by 1399. The sources used by the cot

t
i
t
I
ic
ir
N
of
na
lia

Reviews 121

piler were mainly, if not entirely, contemporary, and some of them appear
to have been the work of eyewitnesses. To 1346 the narrative is based on
the lost Minorite chronicle, whence the Chronicon de Lanercost was derived,
or on some recension of that chronicle other than that of Lanercost. Before
1338 it adds little to what is said in the Chronicon de Lanercost, from 1338
to 1345 the additions are more extensive, and in 1346 the accounts of the
battles of Crécy and Neville’s Cross are considerably fuller. After 1346
the narrative is independent of any known chronicle. The editor thinks
it probable that the compiler translated a Latin source, making small addi-
tions of his own and larger interpolations from other chronicles (p. xxxi).
First and last he used several sources. Among them was probably a chron-
icle written abroad. In many places the information is derived directly or
indirectly from news letters and official documents. The editor agrees with
Mr Kriehn (Am. Hist. Rev., VII, 1902, 266-267) that the vivid description
of the Peasants’ Revolt was probably taken from a contemporary London
narrative and holds that the full record of proceedings in the Good Par-
liament was borrowed from the same or a similar source.

The chronicle is an important addition to the small group of contem-
porary narratives of the period. Its entries about internal affairs before
1876 are scant. Its more copious treatment of foreign affairs, and more
particularly of the Hundred Years’ War, largely supplements previously
known accounts and in some measure corrects them. Beginning with 1376
internal affairs receive the chief attention of the chronicler, and the narra-
tive becomes much more circumstantial. One-half of the chronicle and by
far the most valuable part is occupied with the relation of events during
the six years from 1376 to 1381. It supplies important particulars about
the Good Parliament additional to those given in Chronicon Angliae, Rotuli
Parliamentorum and other known sources, treats John of Gaunt with less
prejudice than Knighton’s Chronicon or Chronicon Angliae, adds a few
facts to our knowledge of Wycliff’s career, gives, as is well known, the best
description of the Peasants’ Revolt, and otherwise increases our detailed
information of the stirring events of the period.

The editor has performed his task with ability and thoroughness. In
the introduction he explains fully the paleography, provenance and history
of the manuscript, the sources used by the compiler, and the value of the
text as an historical source in relation to other contemporary narratives.
In a long series of notes he provides an exceptionally fine critical apparatus,
based on an extensive comparison with other sources. Students who use
this valuable chronicle will find that the editor has done adequately much
of the critical work which editors often leave readers to do for themselves.

W. E. Lunt,
Haverford College.

122 Reviews

Cuartes Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1927. Pp. x, 437.

It is not unlikely that in future centuries the foundation of The Mediaeval
Academy of America, in 1925, will be selected as the striking and typical
event marking the beginning of a new and significant era in mediaeval
studies. When the modern world wearily turned in reaction from the ex-
cessive ecclesiasticism of the Middle Ages, based largely on Hebrew sources,
it first of all feasted eagerly on the classical literature and art of ancient
Greece and Rome. Apart from curiosity about the mediaeval church,
fostered by the Reformation, the first pronounced modern interest in the
Middle Ages came in the nineteenth century and was bound up with the
nationalistic movement. This led to a most penetrating study of the medi-
aeval roots of all the modern languages. The voluminous Latin of the
Middle Ages, already shrouded by the aspersions of the humanists, was
now almost entirely eclipsed by the popularity of Romanic and Germanic
studies.

When Mediaeval Latin language and literature shall have come into
their own, this book of Professor Haskins will, in all probability, become
the standard interpretation of a new intellectual movement, as was Die
Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, by J. Burckhardt, in 1860. Professor
Haskins does not attempt to sketch all aspects of the Renaissance of the
Twelfth Century. He omits vernacular literature, which, although not
exhausted, has been studied assiduously ever since Gaston Paris; likewise
art, which has more than held its own since the days of Viollet-le-Duc.
He wisely confines himself solely to the Latin side of this renaissance.
Latin was the chief medium of culture in the Middle Ages. Without it the
vernacular languages and literatures cannot be understood properly. The
same is true of art — of everything. Latin is the foundation-stone of the
Middle Ages, but thus far it has been too much neglected by those who
have attempted to reconstruct that era. In their eagerness to make rapid
progress, modern scholars have hitched the cart before the horse when they
attempted to understand the vernaculars without a sound knowledge
mediaeval Latin. The abiding value of this new book is its firm insistane
on the importance of the Latin of the Middle Ages, and its brilliant demor-
stration that mediaeval Latin studies can be made as interesting and 4
profitable as similar work in any other field.

As befits a book which strikes a new note and is destined to make
wide and lasting appeal, it is presented by the Harvard University Pres
in a very attractive dress and is written in a style which will charm maij
readers. Although there is not the slightest straining after rhetorical effects
for all the work of the author is distinguished chiefly by its netteté, never

Reviews 123

theless one often pauses to reread a beautiful sentence like that which
describes Mont-Saint Michel:

Few spots are by nature so set apart for monastic seclusion and religious medi-
tation as this remote rock, cut off from the mainland by tide and shifting sands,
and looking out past stormy Breton headlands to the pathless ocean where the sun
of mortal life goes down in death.

Although written in a style and printed in a form which will attract
even the general reader, the book is the result of life-long studies, not only
in printed books but also in all the important manuscript collections and
archives of Europe. The intricacy and the profoundness of this funda-
mental work upon which our book has been reared may be seen in the
author’s Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science (2d ed., Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1927) and in his forthcoming Studies in Mediaeval
Culture.

In recent years there has been frequent mention of a Twelfth-Century
Renaissance, and even some controversy over the propriety of that term,
but this book is the first adequate treatment of the culture of that im-
portant century. Since we are not dealing with a cut and dried subject it
will not be amiss to list the chapters of the book: The Historical Back-
ground, Intellectual Centers, Books and Libraries, The Revival of the Latin
Classics, The Latin Language, Latin Poetry, The Revival of Jurisprudence,
Historical Writing, The Translators from Greek and Arabic, The Revival
of Science, The Revival of Philosophy, The Beginnings of Universities.
That we are still merely on the threshold leading to the treasures of the
Middle Ages is strikingly illustrated by the fact that Professor Haskins
found it necessary to introduce this array of interesting topics by the follow-
ing justification of the title of his book:

Modern research shows us the Middle Ages less dark and less static, the Renais-
sance less bright and less sudden, than was once supposed. The Middle Ages ex-
hibit life and color and change, much eager search after knowledge and beauty,
much creative accomplishment in art, in literature, in institutions. The Italian
Renaissance was preceded by similar, if less wide-reaching movements; indeed, it
came out of the Middle Ages so gradually that historians are not agreed when it
began, and some would go so far as to abolish the name, and perhaps even the fact,
of a renaissance in the Quattrocento.

We now no longer apologize for Gothic architecture. Such books as The
Renaissance of the Twelfth Century will soon make it unnecessary to defend
our interest in the Latin culture of the Middle Ages.

In my use of the volume with advanced students in mediaeval culture,
I found that they sometimes lost their way, owing to the wealth of mate-
nal, closely packed, and exhibiting on almost every page new names and
titles which they had found in no other book. We decided that, for pur-

124 Reviews

poses of careful study of the volume, a synopsis of each chapter would be
helpful. This summary of leading facts might be inserted in the table of
contents, at the head of each chapter, or in an appendix of the second
edition of the book. We were much pleased with the comprehensive,
although carefully sifted, critical bibliographies at the end of each chapter,

and were aided at every turn by the excellent index.
L. J. Partow.
University of California.

H. V. Rovurn, God, Man, and Epic Poetry: A Study in Comparative Literature. Volume II;
Medieval. Cambridge: The University Press, 1927. Pp. xii, 283.

In the present volume, published under so distinguished auspices, Mr
Routh has set himself the interesting task of training the course of epic
tradition in the Middle Ages. The starting-point is Beowulf; the Divine
Comedy marks the end; the Chanson de Roland occupies a somewhat uncer-
tain middle position. These are, indeed, the only literary works of the
period which answer to the author’s definition of epic: to be an epic a
poem must ‘record one of man’s early efforts in moral and spiritual progress,
in winning peace of mind while carrying war into his neighbour’s territory’
(p. 1); the epic hero must face the dangers of the unknown powers of evil
undaunted (pp. 21, 120); while a ‘sense of triumph in achievement, and
joy in the realization of human greatness’ (p. 123) are among the important
concomitants.

Beowulf is an epic because Beowulf, the hero, overcomes his adversary,
namely, fear of the spirit-world of Germanic heathendom (pp. 20, 21;
cf. p. 67 and pp. 13, 30, 164); the Chanson de Roland is an epic because fear
of Original Sin (pp. 90 ff.) has been conquered, and worldly glory and
‘assured felicity in the life to come’ (p. 114) have been temporarily recon-
ciled in Roland, ‘a study of the secular warrior refined and exalted in the
flame of Christianity’ (p. 116). The Chanson de Roland is, however, 4
unique example of a transient type, a ‘sport,’ as it were; it remained for
the Friars, by their preaching, to give rise to ‘a new heroic ideal, a concep-
tion of human beings not only overcoming the greatest difficulties . . . but
achieving that mastery of themselves, that confidence and spiritual sure-
ness, which are the essence of true heroism’ (p. 164). Although the first
inkling of this new heroism appears in Gudrun, Gawayne and the Green
Knight, and Piers Plowman (pp. 242 ff.), we must turn from these to the
other-world visions where the ‘spirit of early Christianity finds its true
outlet’ (pp. 228 ff.), culminating in the Divine Comedy of which Dante is
the hero (p. 252; cf. p. 254). ‘By telling how he restored and saved his
own soul, [Dante] is also telling how mankind conquered Original Sin;

mig
mo!
mac
here
coin
men
cont
Eng!
Angl
trans

illust

to les
up on
to ma

enthu:
hands
MS. o
pocket
centur

Reviews 125

and as both achievements are described in the form of an adventure which
proves the ultimate ennoblement of man, the poem is an epic’ (p. 256).

In spite of an elaborate and often genuinely interesting argument based
upon an essay at a compendious survey of many aspects of mediaeval
culture and psychology, the reviewer finds it extremely difficult to accept
the author’s fundamental propositions: namely, a_religio-sociological
definition of an epic; a symbolic Miillenhoffian interpretation of Beowulf;
and the inclusion of the Divine Comedy — by whatever definition — in the
same literary category with Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland. Strange
bed-fellows these. But the author’s theories would merit greater attention
and a more respectful hearing were it not for the fact that his book
contains a distressing amount of out-of-date scholarship, as well as mis-
understandings and half-understandings of the facts and situations dis-
cussed. By way of example, I venture to quote without comment a number
of passages bearing upon literary problems, omitting all consideration of
Germanic religion and Christian dogma as subjects which presumably lie
outside the special field of the author, who is University Reader in English
Language and Literature, Bedford College, London.

‘The Anglo-Saxon lords, or their poets, . . . believed that a human being
might become sufficiently great to overcome magic and monsters ten times
more formidable than himself’ (p. 2); ‘the author of Beowulf has certainly
made some attempt to bring his story up to date in history [reference is
here given to Hygelac = Chochilaicus] (p. 16); ‘It may not be altogether
coincidence that Beowulf, whatever the spirit of its present form, is the
memory of a continental plague’ (p. 30); ‘We can accept Prof. Chambers’s
contention that the Scandinavian traditions were brought over by the
English settlers in the sixth century and must have been worked into an
Anglian dialect soon after, and must then in the seventh century have been
transposed or paraphrased into West Saxon’ (pp. 78, 79).

The unconventional points of view which fill the pages may be further
illustrated by the following:

‘{King Alfred] was kept from monastic influences, he was not allowed
to learn writing or reading till he was twelve years old. He was brought
up on Old English poems till he had them by heart, and he was encouraged
to make war and hunting his chief pursuits’ (pp. 94, 95); the Chanson de
Roland ‘contains traces of uncivilized coarseness, beneath its chivalrous
enthusiasm. Yet these touches of vulgarity may be the additions of later
hands, not the relics of earlier ones, because the earliest and most reliable
MS. of the Chanson which we possess is a hurriedly written, insignificant
pocket libretto, which some one wrote out towards the end of the twelfth
century, for the use of travelling minstrels’ (p. 111); ‘Unhappily the
poem, as we have it, exists in too rough and popular a form to do full justice

126 Reviews

to the culture of feudal Christianity. We can recognize the epic spirit,
surviving even in this rather debased form’ (p. 118); ‘A poem which merely
describes . . . the occasion and the means of one man’s death and of another
man’s triumph, is a ballad or a lay’ (p. 120); Wace and Layamon wrote
‘inspired chronicles’; yet they ‘do not even distantly and unconsciously
share the greatness of their heroes; they are strangers to the enthusiasms
at which they hint’ (p. 126); Lancelot was ‘not known in the twelfth
century’ (p. 128); besides Lanval, the ‘poems’ of Marie de France include
Graelent, Tiolet, Guingamor, and Tidorel (p. 132); of the Nibelungenlied we
are told that ‘Before the beginning of the thirteenth century, many strange
legends and tales, some drawn originally from Icelandic and Irish sources,
had been worked together into one continuous narrative’ (p. 137); “The
later romances are metrical and rhymed, as if composed to be read. Hence
it is usually concluded that the medieval epic began to decay as soon as
books became common. In the old days, it is argued, the minstrel was
forced to seek an audience, and wherever he found one men predominated
and so the story had to glorify the affairs of men. But the more modem
verse-maker produced his wares to circulate in writing, and manuscripts
were more readily welcomed by women than by men’ (p. 142).

The origin of the Round Table is viewed in a new light: ‘In the days
of Beowulf, the comitatus provided at once the strongest impulse and the
best opportunity for heroism, and it is not difficult to see how the insti-
tution grew into the idea of the Round Table’ (p. 145); ‘Boethius himself
was undoubtedly a Christian, and to the imaginative and ill-informed his-
torical notions of the Middle Ages his sudden fall invested him with the
character of a victim, almost of a martyr’ (p. 196); ‘By the mid-thirteenth
[century] the clergy had ceased to marry, and the . . . invectives against
women, which arose in early monastic misogynism, had increased enor-
mously’ (p. 218). The hero of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is summed
up as ‘no epic warrior but a type of chivalry too full of edification to be
real. . . . The defect of Gawayne is not its allegorizing tendency, but its
divorce from the most urgent and intimate problems of medieval life’
(pp. 226, 227); Kundrun, Sir Gawain, and Piers Plowman are characterized
as ‘disillusioned and rather disingenuous stories of life’ (p. 228).

To Bishop Poore (see Index) is restored the authorship of the Ancren
Riwle; the Kentish Ayenbit of Inwit is cited variously as by Dan Michel,
Frére Lorens, and Laurentius Gallus (see Index) ; Beowulf is quoted (pp. 18,
23, 24) apparently from Heyne’s 1863 edition; pronouncements upon the
Celtic origins in romance rest on the authority of Renan (p. 134, n. }),
who is likewise cited for Averroés (p. 209, n. 4). ‘Jean de Lorris’ is the
creator of the ‘mystic garden’ of the rose (p. 102); a wholly new explan-
tion is offered for the decline of runic writing and the reduction (!) of the

—_— os.lUC rf hl

Reviews 127

futhark from 24 to 16 characters (pp. 36, 37); the discussion of Danes and
Geats, their civilization, and their relation to Beowulf is arresting (espe-
cially pp. 7, 8).

The bibliographical indications are such as to tax the resourcefulness
and ingenuity of any reader, as, for example, references to Saxo Grammati-
cus, where the author has apparently extracted from the margins of Holder
and cited without explanation folio of the 1514 editio princeps and page of
Erasmus Miiller’s 1839 edition (p. 10, n. 3, et passim).

To say that Man, God, and Epic Poetry needs an overhauling before
receiving more serious consideration, is to state the case mildly. As it
stands, it has little to offer the scholar, while to the layman it will be, far
too often, extremely misleading. It is not the sort of book one has come to
expect from the press whose imprint it bears.

F. P. Macoun, Jr.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOKS RECEIVED

Under this heading Specutum will list the titles of all books and mono-
graphs on mediaeval subjects as they are received from author or publisher,
In many cases the titles here listed will be reviewed in a future issue.

E. K. Chambers, Arthur of Britain, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1927.

P. Champion, Louis XI, Vol. I, Le Dauphin; Vol. II, Le Rot, Paris: Champion, 1927.

G. G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion, Vol. 11, The Friars and the Dead Weight of Traditwn,
Cambridge (England): University Press, 1927.

P. Debongnie, Jean Mombaer de Bruzelles, Abbé de Livry, Ses Ecrits et ses Réformes, Louvain:
Librairie Universitaire, 1928.

A. B. Emden, An Ozford Hall in Mediaeval Times, being the Early History of St Edmund Hall,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927.

J. P. Fuhrmann, 0.S.B., Irish Mediaeval Monasteries on the Continent, Catholic University of
America diss., privately printed, 1927.

Sister M. Madeleva, Chaucer's Nuns and Other Essays, New York: Appleton & Co., 1925.

——, Pearl: A Study in Spiritual Dryness, New York: Appleton & Co., 1925.

M. Manitius, ed., R. Ulich, trans., V agantenlieder aus der Lateinischen Dichtung des 12. und 13.
Jahrhunderts, Jena: Diederich, 1927.

A. Nelson, Om Uppsala Universitet under Medeltiden, Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1927.

S. R. Packard, ed., Miscellaneous Records of the Norman Exchequer, 1199-1204, Smith College
Studies in History, Vol. XII, Northampton: Department of History of Smith College,
1927.

L. J. Paetow, ed., trans., The Battle of the Seven Arts, a French Poem by Henry D’ Andeli,
Trouvére of the Thirteenth Century, Memoirs of the University of California, Vol. 4, No.1,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1927.

——, ed., Morale Scolariom of John of Garland (Johannes de Garlandia) a Professor in thé
Universities of Paris and Toulouse in the Thirteenth Century, with an Introduction on the
Life and Works of the Author, together with Facsimiles of Four Folios of the Bruges
Manuscript, Memoirs of the University of California, Vol. 4, No. 2, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1927.

H. R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1927.

R. F. Seybolt, trans., Renaissance Student Life, the Paedologia of Petrus Mosellanus, Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1927.

J.-Th. Welter, L’Exemplum dans la Littérature Religieuse et Didactique du Moyen Age, Paris:
Occitania, 1927.

—, ed., Thesaurus Exemplorum, Fasc. III, La Tabula Exemplorum Secundum Ordinem
Alphabetae: Recueil d’ Exempla compilé en France @ la Fin du XIII Siécle, Paris: Occitania,
1926.

128

sic
lef
fol

gra

in }
five
(see
moc
Sucl
used

and

italic

NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
I

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

1, All communications intended for publication should be pre-
sented with as much consideration for style as the nature of the sub-
ject will permit.

2. Articles in foreign languages will usually be accepted, but it is
hoped that the authors of such articles will, if expedient, permit an
approved English translation to be substituted.

II
TYPOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RULES

In the interest of uniformity, clearness, and economy, the edi-
torial board has adopted the following typographical and biblio-
graphical conventions. Since these will be applied to all MSS pub-
lished, contributors are requested to codperate by following these
rules when preparing their MSS. Special cases will receive special
consideration, but it is hoped that contributors will be sparing in
their departures from the regular editorial practice.

1. All MSS must be typewritten, and double-spaced, on only one
side of standard-size (8}”X11") paper. Ample margins should be
left on all sides. MSS exceeding four or five pages should not be
folded or rolled.

2. Except for such recognized Anglicisms as shew for show and
-our for -or, the Concise Oxford Dictionary will be taken as the ortho-
graphic authority.

3. Italic will be used for words and phrases not in the language
in which the article is written, including quotations not exceeding
five or six typewritten lines, which appear in the body of the text
(see §6 below); also for the titles of books and poems, ancient or
modern, of periodical publications, and for the title of manuscripts.
Such words, phrases, passages, or titles, unless italic script itself be
used, should be underscored.

4. Titles of articles in periodical publications will be in roman
and quoted. See §§ 14 and 15 below.

5. The following words, phrases, and abbreviations should be
italicized :

ad loc., cap., circa (ca.), et al., tbid., idem, infra, loc. cit., op. cit.,

passim, saec., scilicet (scil. or sc.), sub voce (s. v.), versus (v8.),

vide (v.), viz.,

but not:
col., cf., etc., e.g., ff. (following), fol. (folio, folios), i.e., and p.

6. In the body of the text, quotations in any language of over
five or six typewritten lines will be printed without quotation marks
in small roman as separate paragraphs (see § 3 above). In footnotes,
also printed in small roman, quotations will be treated in the same
manner. In typewritten MSS, small roman may be indicated either
by single-spacing or by a vertical line at the side of the quoted
passage.

7. Wherever special type is necessary, a marginal note of instruc.
tion should be added. Bold-face should be indicated by a wavy line
under the word or words.

8. It will be of great convenieuce to the editors if footnotes are
placed immediately below the line which carries the reference num-
ber, and are set off from the text by a line drawn above and below
the note.

9. Reference numbers used for footnotes will be printed con-
tinuously on the page, but not continuously throughout an article.

10. In the citation of references the amount of bibliographical
detail will be left to the discretion of the contributor, but — taking
into consideration the desired omissions — the order of the items
should be presented in the form and order given below. As a rule,
item (5) need not be included in citing books over twenty years old.
Contributors are urged, however, to give full bibliographical data
when referring to out-of-the-way or very rare books, since such in-
formation is often of the greatest help to libraries and to individuals
who may wish to consult these titles.

The order of bibliographical items should be as follows: (1) au-
thor’s name, preceded by his initials and followed by a comma; (2)
title (italicized if of a book or periodical, in roman and quoted if of
and article); (3) where necessary, the edition, followed by a comma,
(4) place of publication, followed by a colon; (5) name of publisher:
(6) date of publication; (7) reference to volume (large romal
numerals without preceding ‘Vol.’ or ‘V.’) and page (or column).
Items 3 to 6 should be placed in parentheses. For example:

H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind (4th ed., New York: Macmillan, 1925), II, 221.

C. Plummer, “Glossary of DuCange. — Addenda et Corrigenda,” Archiuum Latinitatis
Medii Aeui I (1925), 225.

In the cause of typographical uniformity and resultant economy
it is urged that the first word and all nouns and adjectives in al
titles, in whatever language, be capitalized.

“_ oe ff dee

11. Where the reference includes the number of the volume, as
in the illustrations given in §10, the abbreviation ‘p.’ or ‘col.’
will be omitted; otherwise the page (or column) number should
be preceded by “p.’ or ‘col.’ Folios of MSS should be designated

by ‘fol.’ and described ‘r’ and ‘v’ (not ‘a’ and ‘b’). Both ‘recto’
(‘r’) and ‘verso’ (‘v’) should be specified. For example:

C.H. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin (Chicago: Scott,Foresman and Co., 1925), p. 45

W.-H. Maigne d’Arnis, Lericon Manuale ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (Paris:
Garnier, 1890), col. 1678.

MS. Cotton Nero D, iv, fol. 259r.

12. The names of ancient authors appearing in the body of the
text should not be abbreviated, though in footnotes abbreviations
may be used: for Greek, according to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-
English Lexicon (rev. ed., Oxford, 1925), pp. xiii-xxxvi; for Latin,
according to Harper’s Latin Dictionary (ed. Lewis and Short), pp.
vii-xi. For example:

Oros., iii, 12, 6.

13. In citing from the works of mediaeval and ancient authors,
use small roman numerals for ‘books,’ Arabic numerals for the
smaller divisions (chapter, section, etc.). Commas, not periods,
should separate these items. For example:

Bede, Historia Eccl., ii, 2.

14. In citing from periodical publications, both volume and year
§ should be given, the year (in parentheses) following the volume
number. For example:

R. R. Welschen, ** Le Concept de Personne selon Saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste, XXII
(1914), 129 ff.

15. The proceedings of societies and academies are often vexing
and perplexing titles to trace, and great economy of effort might be
effected were the bibliographical indications standardized. There-
fore it is kindly requested that the titles of the issuing bodies be
given from the entry in the invaluable Union List of Serials in
libraries of the United States and Canada, ed. W. Gregory (New
York City: H. W. Wilson Co., 1927); these entries are those used
by the Library of Congress and many other leading libraries. For
example:

C. Wendel, “‘ Ueberlieferung und Entstehung der Theokrit-Scholien,” Gesells. d. Wis-
sensch. zu Gottingen, Abhandlungen, phil.-hist. K1., N. F. XVII (1920), Nr.2. (Cf. Union List,
p. 566, col. 1.)

A. Hilka u. W. Séderhjelm, “Petri Alfonsi Disciplina Clericalis; I. Lat. Text,” Finska
Veenskaps-societeten XXXVIII (Helsingfors, 1911), Nr. 4. (Cf. Union List, p. 517, col. 3.)

16. Upon first reference, titles should be given amply; in suc-
ceeding references any conventional or easily intelligible abbrevia-
tion may be employed.

17. Abbreviations such as loc. cit., op. cit. should not ordinarily
be used to refer farther back than the preceding page. Since the
problem, however, is merely to avoid ambiguity, no hard and fast
rule need be laid down.

18. All references should be verified in the completed MS. before
it is submitted for publication.

19. Mediaeval nomenclature is far from uniform. Where a con.
ventional English form of a name exists, this should be used: thus,
Vincent of Beauvais, Geoffrey of Monmouth, not Vincentius Bello
vacensis, Vincent de Beauvais, or Galfridus Monemutensis. If
recognized English form exists, it will be preferable in most cases
to use the form of the name employed to-day in the language of the
writer concerned; thus, Chrétien de Troyes, not Chrestien de Troyes a
Christian of Troyes; Gautier de Chatillon, not Gualterus de Castellion
or Walter of Chatillon. In many cases the ‘standard’ form is, by
common consent and practice, Latin: thus, Andreas Capellanus, not
Andrew the Chaplain. There will of course be many doubtful cases,
e.g., Alanus de (ab) Insulis vs. Alain de l’Ile (de Lille).

The principle here stated is also applicable in most cases to the
titles of mediaeval works.

Except where a well-established Anglicized form exists, place
names should follow the usage of the country in which the plac
now lies.!

Itt
AuTHOR’s CORRECTIONS

The funds of Specutum do not admit of an expenditure of over
fifteen per cent (15%) of the cost of composition for alterations is
articles once set up in galley proof. In order that contributors may
be spared the expense of exceeding this allowance, they are urged t0
prepare their MSS as nearly as possible in conformity with the
above rules.

OFFPRINTS

Fifty (50) offprints will be given to the author of each article
Offprints in excess of the regular allowance may be had at cost and
should be ordered at the time of publication.

Inquiries may be addressed to the Managing Editor.

1 In preparing the above typographical and bibliographical rules, the editors have b
under great obligation to A Manual for Writers by J. M. Manly and J. A. Powell (Chicagt
The University of Chicago Press).

ly
he
ast

ore

lace.
lace

rticle.
st and

re ae SGC

ee Econ oe ‘

who calls
peters
SHOT R: arene are iN

sflosigk

‘ Re: ty poetry, @cience
atone attempted 0 *
and interesting study.

for.the more experienced ti
ven a = Pests act 5:20 a oe BS

minent, atid

ks of all'w ate interested in the Mid- }
ges are due to-the assiduous and

: ing bpd ceaerars

| tecturé
ication ns of, nibague’ ‘

in a. Seconit edition, with notes, |
sore ay beapeacig a}
HtIOn: Gn its topic, y
Post ‘says’ that “the

Professor Haskins in :
the’ purveyors of

xa aa,
work has just been} The bale

Ntiad age rentine Archie

and Deve

pide marec yg gree

Sogn elt are. the most. im- |
special develop- |
t in many j fram’ the

church of

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Speculum 1928-01: Vol 3 Iss 1"

See other formats